Dream a little dream.

Anyone who knows me well is aware that all my life I have had the most vivid, detailed, and often alarming dreams. In my youth I kept a dream diary but stopped after it was becoming more and more clear to me that my subconscious is one that should perhaps, well, stay there. My husband’s endearing response to listening to years and years of “I just had the weirdest dream…” is a shake of the head, and “Freak.”

Perhaps he’s slightly on target. The really vivid dreams I remember in great detail, as well as if they actually happened, and years after they occur. I put a lot of stock in these dreams. I’ve been inclined to believe that the ones that are the most vivid can be foretelling. I’ve had several occasions over the years where something I dreamt had in fact come to pass (others argue déjà vu). And I have also come to believe that the dreams I’ve had with visits from the dead, are just that. I’ve been told by seers before that I have a mostly untapped gift. I have remained of the opinion that perhaps I’m just not ready to fully tap it, if ever.

Most of the time the dreams are just totally out there; random stories that I play for myself night after night. With the exception of the first trimester, one thing that I really loved about being pregnant with my children, and the months that followed in their infancy, was the lack of dreaming. Up numerous times a night (while pregnant to pee, postpartum to feed), and completely exhausted, either I didn’t dream at all or was just way to comatose when I did sleep to recall it. It was a nice change of pace.

The first trimester for each child, but more so for my first, was down right horrific. The nightmares were unbelievable. Blood, gore, body parts, Dark-Age, apocalyptic shit. I went to my OBGYN convinced that I was about to bare the spawn of the Devil. And I don’t even believe in the Devil. She assured me that I was not in fact carrying a demon child, but was one of a small percentage of women who get a form of pregnancy insomnia that often come chock full with nightmares, and it would pass. Thank Goddess she was right.

Now that Dominic has started to sleep through the night on a fairly consistent basis, so have I. Bring on the weird!!! Dreams have most certainly come back in full force. Last night’s installment included a lovely trip back to Vampire’s Grave out in Western Coventry (I think), with a pit stop on the way past Hell’s Gate (another cemetery I believe on private land) that housed the Hounds of Hell. I haven’t thought about these places in ages.

For those who are wondering what the hell I’m talking about, Vampire’s Grave was a gravestone that created quite the buzz over the years for the young generations. I believe the teenage girl who died in the late 1800’s was named Nellie Vaughn, and her epithet stated “I’m waiting and watching for you.” Rumors circulated that this young girl was a vampire, and as a result she had many visitors over the 1970’s and 80’s. Paul and I used to drive out there, back in my historic cemetery phase, to visit Nellie and read all the stones. We had this great plan (OK, maybe it was my plan) to map out the entire family tree of the cemetery, until we got lazy and figured that someone had probably already done it anyway. Unfortunately, quite a few of Nellie’s visitors were rather disrespectful, and her resting place had fallen prey to vandalism. The tablet has since been removed, which is such a shame. It was a beautiful piece of history.

I never tried to trespass on Hell’s Gate (although I swear I heard the dogs from the road), but the two were intertwined in last night’s dream. I was running around the grave yard, looking for Nellie’s offering bowl that once sat at her stone, and I could hear the sounds of the dogs and see the gate in the distance (even though that’s impossible). As I often do, I am looking for reasoning behind the sudden reemergence of this place from my memory. It’s not very often that I dream of cemeteries these days. Am I sending myself a message of bad news to come? An omen, if you will? Is it a metaphor representing that I have lost something, or someone? I could find deeper meaning in both of those questions, but perhaps the answer is a little more simple…like I might be watching too much Buffy. “Slayer. She who hangs out in grave yards. Slayer, The.”