Try Not to Think About These Things
Recently Zan did a list entitled, “Things I Sometimes Imagine Against My Will,” and Maggie followed up with a similar list of her own.
Aside from the zombies and portals to another world, Zan’s list is fairly rooted in reality. Maggie’s is a little closer to the kinds of things that spring, unbidden, to my mind in unguarded moments (especially the hand-under-the-bed one). I can think of a few others that give me the blithering fantods, too:
- Glancing out the bedroom door to see something large and humanoid scuttling up the stairs.
- Riding on a funicular and feeling a lurch as the cable snaps.
- As I pass the row of stuffed toys in my son’s room, they turn their heads to watch me.
- Washing dishes, looking up to find a stranger with crazed eyes staring at me through the kitchen window.
- Falling into a hole to another dimension, being unable to get back out.
- Waking up at night to find a shadowy figure standing at the foot of the bed.
What are some of yours? Unburden your psyche in the comments!
Posted in Whatever | 11 Comments »
March 18th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Yikes!!! My big one is when I roll my drivers side window down to exit the garage at the office (not that I park there much anymore) its all creepy and you have to put your badge on the sensor…and I always imagine a hand grabbing me, disabling me from the left side of the car then a psycho accomplice breakign the passenger side window, getting in my car to kill me.
March 18th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Man, I’m loving the mental images!
Interesting how some are similar yet others are completely unique.
My latest is when my fella’s laying next to me in bed facing the other way, but I know his eyes are open, he’s grinning and, well, let’s just say he’s not really himself anymore…
March 18th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
By the way, I especially like your first one!
March 18th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I can relate to the last one. My gosh! I have a fear of leaving my bedroom door open for fear that I may awake and find someone staring at me.
That couldn’t have been caused by my helicopter mom.
and I have a fear of doing the “in the name of the father, son, spirit” prayer at churches with the holy water in fear it may burn my forehead…
“As I pass the row of stuffed toys in my son’s room, they turn their heads to watch me.”
I just have a mental image of a red teddy bear with black eyes and PVC horns and wings turning its head as someone passes. :P
March 18th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Sliding down a long tube (like a waterslide) lined top to bottom with razor blades.
Accidentally backing over a child.
Swallowing bits of crushed ice to find that they are actually glass shards.
The cute affectionate cat is actually an oversized insect with many moving legs and mouthparts.
Matrix-style meltaway of “reality” to find you are actually floating alone in total darkness with miles of ocean beneath you.
And those are only the ones that spring to mind.
March 18th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Having the opportunity to be that special person with special skills in a pinch…
And being too damn slow to use them.
He dies. She dies. Everybody dies.
*sigh*
March 20th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Some of those are really nightmarish. Jeez. Here’s a few of mine.
Waking up somewhere completely unfamiliar, not where I went to bed; the people there don’t seem to know what I’m talking about.
Going into the bathroom and turning on the light, and seeing something wrong with the person in the mirror. Either it’s not me, or my eyes are gone, or I’m grinning and insane, or I’m not there, or I’m bloody, or there’s a corpse dog on the other side.
Walking out into my living room at night to get water and being confronted by a dead white dog with red eyes and ragged lips. It leaps at me.
Whipping the shower curtain back to find someone or something there.
Opening the curtains to see the sun setting in the wrong place, or the sky is red like blood.
Lying in the dark and suddenly imagining being dead — my own utter nonexistence. Scares the shit out of me every time.
The idea of my husband dying — car accident, bite from one of our snakes, falling airplane waste — and leaving me alone and helpless.
Me dying and leaving HIM alone and helpless, and knowing right as I die that he’s going to kill himself too.
Answering machine messages that say creepy things. Also, radio static that turns into voices saying creepy things. “It is becoming very cold.” “We don’t understand why the water is still rising.” “This is a broadcast from the year 199-”
I hate my imagination sometimes.
March 20th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
“Me dying and leaving HIM alone and helpless, and knowing right as I die that he’s going to kill himself too.”
That’s actually kind of romantic. wish I had someone like that…
“Opening the curtains to see the sun setting in the wrong place, or the sky is red like blood.”
Again, my gosh. That is kind of beautiful.
Do you write poetry Naamah?
March 20th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Thanks, Bree! Not much for writing poetry, but pretty much everything else is fair game.
I’ve had the bloody sky nightmare many times. I blame watching Watership Down nine million times as a kid.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:59 pm
I can’t go to sleep with my back toward the door.
November 1st, 2012 at 8:26 pm
dont laugh but:
seeing someone in my closet
(its big and i STUPIDLY put my trench coats and boots in front)
finding that creepy old doll
that was locked in the attic
finding instead of sleeping next to my huge stuffed dog its a person
finding the warm spot on me is not my cat but a hand
and!
looking in the mirror to see someone behind me (and my open closet is right.behind.it)
and never make fun of people with glasses! i tend to freak myself out when they are off just because its fuzzy