The Purpose of Teddy Bears

Jennifer? Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

…

Jennifer? Wake up. It’s just a dream. Wake up.

…

Jennifer? Open your eyes. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.

…

NOW.

There is a flash. Eyes open. Darkened room. I begin to take inventory. Where am I? I’m in my room. I’m at home. It’s still night time. And the dog? Is the dog okay? Ned the dog is sleeping in his cage at the foot of my bed. It’s just slightly after one in the morning. The air conditioner, Chilltron, is still whirring away in the window. The room is cool. But I am sweating. I go to close my eyes and something prevents me. They will come back if I go back to sleep too soon. Eyes wide open now, I start to piece it all together.

Where was I just then?

The dream is lit with a murky blue filter. It was a long dream, but I can only hold onto the end of it. My companion is tall and lanky, with dark eyes and dark hair. I have a feeling I know him, but not very well. We have decided to find privacy from the old school halls in a secret room that he knows. We run, almost floating along the halls. There is mahogany trim around all the doors. The halls are enormous and oppressive all at once. In the classrooms, ballerinas stretch at the bar in front of long mirrors. They have blank faces. One lifts her leg onto the bar and opens her right arm overhead as she stretches back and tilts her head. Her fingers are long and thin. We move past her and through the halls, faster and faster now. I can’t feel my feet touch the ground. My companion holds my hand.

And then we are climbing a wide, steep staircase. Up, up, up. Steeper and steeper. Higher and higher. I almost get vertigo. At the top of the staircase, everything is darkness. We slow our pace as we approach. “It’s in here,” he whispers to me. As his head peeks just over the top stair, he tentatively reaches up to grab the knob to the small attic door. Beyond the closed door, I know, is a small room. It’s supposed to be empty.

As he turns the knob, we hear the murmur. There is a rustling from within the room. Something scurries and whispers. My companion looks at me with wide eyes. This was not supposed to happen. I want to tell him to stop, but I can’t. He looks at me as if he wants to stop, but is compelled to keep going. He continues to turn the doorknob. It clicks open and the door swings inwards with a creak. Crreeeeak.

I am still on the stairs, looking up at the open doorway. The room beyond is in darkness too. But it is eerie. I’m worried. From out of the darkness, two sets of glowing eyes float towards us. At first glance, they are children. They speak to us.

What did they say? What did they say?

It’s some sort of warning. I can’t remember it. They aren’t there to hurt us. But they are there to warn us of danger. They slowly move closer and closer to us. As they approach, their form becomes clearer to me. It is a boy and a girl, and each looks about ten years old. I can see right through them, as if they are ghosts. Or a hologram. They are enveloped in an aura. My companion reaches out to them, and they shift shape. Like a hologram. All of a sudden the children become adults—ghoulish adults. They are both blood-stained. I can tell how they died. Blood loss. Stab wounds.

My companion recoils. He pulls his hand back quickly. The hologram shifts again, and we see the children with the glowing eyes. They whisper and warn us again.

What did they say? Why can’t I remember it?

My companion looks at me and without speaking explains to me what these two forms in the doorway are. They are young souls. They are imprinted images of childhood after death. But they are impermanent. The adult form of the holograms shows us how and when these two died. We can see both forms, young and old, switch back and forth and back and forth as they move toward us in the dim light. I try to hide in the stairwell. My companion tells me to run. I turn and flee.

The stairs are steep and I fly down them, until I feel like I’m heading straight into a never-ending hole. My companion is far behind me. I can’t look back to see if he is safe. I have to keep going. I have to keep going. I have to get away.

Are they chasing him? Are they after him? What did they want? Did he survive? Should I go back and help him?

And as I fly down the stairs, my subconscious meets my conscious and I force myself to wake up from the nightmare. And I am freaked out.

I often have nightmares, but they are rarely supernatural in nature. I reach for my teddy bear and hold it tight. [Shut up.] Sleep comes again after about an hour of going over the nightmare in my head with a fine-tooth comb. I cannot remember what the young souls were trying to tell me. But if anyone can analyze that dream or recognize some archetypes coming out of it or anything, however Jungian it may be, I’d love to know where that came from.

Because, damn, that was some scary shit.