Dream Journal

Context: I'm referring to my facial pain. This must have been when a medication was temporarily working for me.

With the release of much of my pain comes the return of my dreams.

This one is astonishing.

I am living in this house with Rebecca and the kids. While there, I hear this loud grinding, buzzing sound for about 7 seconds. I hear a mental news report or people’s thoughts, talking about the destruction that took place, and I go outside to investigate. I see a girl (maybe 6-8 years old) and a seven-foot tall tree. The story unfolds to me — there was an orange light on the tree that turned on and then killed a bunch of people and destroyed a bunch of things. Instantly my thoughts turn angry against it. The orange light comes on. I know not to look at it, because once it’s on for 7 seconds, it visits nuclear death upon the ones triggering it. As I become distracted, it turns off.

Now this scene I replayed later on, and so the two are mixed, but I recall mistaking the girl for the source of the orange light. So at least the second time, probably both, I was facing the tree from up close while the girl circled around it maybe 10 feet away. I made sure to keep her out of my sight by keeping the tree between us as she walked around.

I returned to my house, terribly scared of this orange light. As I walk around inside the house, I notice that both the upstairs and downstairs bathroom windows face out towards the seven-foot tree. I have to use the bathroom, but fear to go in it. I imagine myself not being able to use the bathroom in my house in the morning or evening. I decide I can’t live that way and decide to do some experiments.

The first I don’t recall . . . perhaps testing to see if objects can set it off. In the second experiment, I test to see if animals can set it off. I feel bad about doing so, but grab the cat and set it in the window in view of the tree. Nothing happens, even when it looks that way. I remember thinking I need to protect Jamie and Holly from this thing. At some point something in the house makes me angry and the orange light appears over it. The orange light is circular, reminiscent of a traffic light, and superimposed over whatever I am getting angry at. I have 7 seconds to stop being angry. I manage to do so.

Then I’m setting off with a bunch of people. We’re driving to a facility to test the orange light. On the way there, something in the traffic upsets me and the orange light appears. I calm myself and it turns off. My face becomes relaxed and passive and I let my thoughts move to other things. When we arrive at the facility, we put on space suits, ready to run a series of tests or training missions in a series of tightly-sealed chambers. The tests begin: we encounter purposefully upsetting situations, and we try to relax and not let it make us angry. If it does, the orange light comes on and we have to stop being angry in time.

There are several rounds of this. In one I fail and a nuclear bomb explodes on my group — the result of which is that I feel I am almost certainly irradiated and will have health issues due to that. In another I’m doing pretty well, but we see a nuke go off in the chamber across the way, and the blast is so strong that we are also destroyed. I see the screen representation of both the chamber across the hall and ours turn red.

I become quite good at letting go of the anger.

I am back at my house again, with some people who I think are from the training sessions. I’m playing a game with the orange light and several children now. I’m no longer afraid of it. If it appears, I instantly turn my attention elsewhere and let the anger go. There is a pizza delivery, and I think the Beeb is there, too. There are several more instances of the orange light appearing, but I always overcome my emotions in a second or two. I revisit the 7 foot tree, replay that scene again, and the orange light never comes on.

There’s a long scene in a fashion store as well, with the ever-present now-minor threat of the orange light, which makes a few appearances — the longest of which is outside the front door of the store across the street on a billboard.

I have learned good self-control, but what a truly horrifying dream! It was like behavior modification with the most blunt of instruments.

References: The Beeb was my high school nemesis.