A Nightmare on Grunauer Place

This may be the first time I've ever woken up visibly rattled from a dream.

Came back from a Barone family reunion (real good times, good food, good people), back here to my parents' house, and possibly because I was up dumb late watching Blood and Black Lace, I was fucking pooped. Continued to read my latest book (blog about it to come), but then started dozing off so I just 'F it' and took a napparoo.

Almost instantly, I became engulfed within this really bizarre sequence of events in dream-form. All taken place outside, near some sort of swampy area. A handful of people I knew, such as my mom, some of my cousins, a couple celebrities, and my dog Zoey, were present throughout.

All of the episodes teetered toward the macabre spectrum of tone. I don't clearly recall each, most are a bit foggy. One I kinda remember being about a miniature Me, all six or so inches of me, being stuck within some cupboard as a giant was coming to find and kill me. Don't ask. All I know is that this scene abruptly ended and bled into the next one.

This final one was the episode that did me in, in terms of waking up in a bit of a breathless panic. There were four of us in my mom's Durango, she herself may have even been driving. Although God I hope not. Whoever the driver was, he/she insisted on being a daredevil and speeding toward this gross, nasty-looking swamp, which began like the ocean-break on a beach, and he/she kept speeding toward the swamp-beginning. None of us others in the Durango were pleading with he/she to stop or anything, which made it all the more off-putting.

I was seated in the back part of the truck, where you'd typically put bags and boxes and coolers and shit. But, of course, this was all being seen my from POV, so as the truck submerged into the swamp, the driver tried cutting the tire violently, turning the Durango to the left. Yet, "turning" is an exaggeration, being that it was hardly shifting, instead sinking deeper and deeper into the swamp.

Then, the lights in the car shut off. And then I could hear the engine giving out. And my breath began cutting short. Gasping. Yet none of us were screaming. Or crying. Or yelling to the heavens above for help. We were just taking it.

But then, suddenly, the lack of oxygen forced me to look up, as in "Holy shit, I can't breathe!" And as I looked up, I noticed that I was back in my bed. Lights off in my room. My book lying next to me. Phone blinking because of three missed calls.

And I was back in reality. Breathing comfortably. Safe. Swamp-free.

Damn, that dream kinda fucked me up.