I can’t see things in my head. At least I couldn’t before.
Sure I could dream at night, but that was unconscious, when I was asleep. My friends would make fun of me, give me looks when anyone said “picture it in your minds eye” or “close your eyes and see it.” I would just roll my eyes and scoff, but in the back of my mind, I always wondered what I was missing. I wanted to see the beautiful images of my “happy place”, I wanted to rotate that cow. Most importantly though, I just wanted to be able to close my eyes and see my fiancé’s face. To think back to old memories and remember exactly what his face looked like during his happiest moments.
My thought was maybe since I can dream and I see things in my sleep, maybe I could train myself to consciously create those picture I desperately wanted. I thought if I made myself really tired, and was able to start dozing, I could have conscious thought while my body was asleep, to essentially “dream” while awake. I’d never experienced a daydream before. I wanted to feel what it was like.
That night, I took some melatonin. Artificial tiredness, I thought, would be easier to fight than actual tiredness. I absent-mindedly scrolled through my phone while I waited for the medicine to kick in. It hit me so fast my head spun. I set my phone down hard on my bed side table and listened to it thud, then clatter to the floor. I gingerly laid my head down, waiting for the room to stop spinning.
As quick as it hit me, the dizziness subsided. I breathed out a sigh, reminding myself why I took the sleeping pills in the first place. Closing my eyes, I tried my best to relax but something didn’t feel right. I ignored the heavy pounding in my chest and started what I set out to do.
At first I tried to picture some kind of landscape. The beach, the park, the bustling campus of the college I attend. When that didn’t work, I decided I needed to try something more specific. Trying to soothe my aching head, I opened my eyes and looked over at my fiancé’s sleeping face. His lips curled up in a lazy smile. That’s what I wanted to be able to see for the rest of my life.
I closed my eyes again, thinking about him, the love of my life, and the future I want with him. I had to see his face. I focused on the fatigue, allowing it to take over my body. My head swam again as I started to doze off. It was such a strange experience to fight so hard against my mind, without fully waking myself up.
Finally, I started to see it. I could see the outline of a face. It floated right in the front of my mind, slowly getting darker and clearer. Piece by piece, the face took shape. First the ears, then the nose, then two empty eye sockets. My heart pounded harder as the empty sockets got more and more detailed.
It wasn’t right. I had never seen eyes like that before, how could I imagine them? My breath caught as I tried to calm down. “It’s ok,” I thought over and over. “It’s fine, the eyes are coming next. It’s ok.” But they didn’t come next. The sockets stayed. Bloody and red. Lifeless. I wish I had opened my eyes. I wish I had fallen asleep right then and there. Instead I watched in horror as the mouth erupted onto the horrific eyeless face, grinning a terrifying smile.
I shot up, drenched in sweat, tearing my eyes open to get rid of that awful face.But to my horror, the face didn’t disappear. It was there. At the foot of my bed. Attached to a lanky, inhuman body.
A terrifying scream filled the air and I realized finally that the sound was coming from me. I felt hands on my shoulders, shaking me violently. I heard the creature screaming my name over and over, it’s voice penetrating my skull like nails on a chalkboard.
Then it was over. And it wasn’t the creature holding me. It was my fiance, his eyes full of concern. I looked over at the foot of the bed, and saw nothing but sunlight pouring in through the cracks in the blinds. I sighed a breath of relief and let out a little chuckle.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him. “Bad dream I guess.”
But what I saw when I turned back to him sent a chill down my spine. It was the same face I had seen before, those lifeless eyes staring blankly at me.
“Really?” He asked, his voice making bile rise in my throat. “What about?”