The purpose of nightmares

This morning I had a nightmare. It startled me clean awake.

The experience, even now burned within my memory, was vivid, completely believable at the time, yet highly implausible in retrospect, as nightmares usually are. Even now I do not dare describe it, silence being my only totem against its worrisome power.

It is not all that often that our darkest demons rise up, emerging in suddenly crystaline form from the murky depths below, and announce their disturbing presence. So when they do, it is best to pay attention.

It turns out that I had had a very pleasant dream earlier in the night. Even now I remember thinking, while still asleep, that upon awakening I would recount this first dream for my amused friends.

But that was before the morning nightmare played its trump card, before I was forced to stare my darkest fears full in the face. After that, there was no room for pleasantries.

And yet, today during the day I found an odd sense of calm. I engaged in no self-destructive acts, no nagging doubts, no awkwardly missed opportunities for true communication.

It is as though the nightmare had burned me clean, leaving no tendrils of self-defeating thought within its wake. At least for now, I am stone cold sober, focused, alert, and well aware of the wolf lurking just beyond the campfire.

Perhaps this is the purpose of nightmares. We spend so much of our waking lives in blissful slumber. But like a hated yet always reliable old acquaintance, the nightmare comes when we need to be startled awake.