DEATH: Dreams in which we actually die are a means of experimenting with meeting death. If we are frightened of death and have not worked out a relationship with it, then we will not live fully and daringly. In our dream life, death usually holds in it the promise of change or regeneration-rebirth. Dreams sometimes use death to illustrate leaving something behind, such as a relationship when love is dying.
My parents thought it appropriate to protect their children from anything in literature, film or TV that could be considered scary. The closest I got was the demise of Bambi’s mother (which haunted me for years) and TV westerns like Matt Dillon, The Rifleman, or Paladin handing out death without blood from the working end of a six-shooter.
Everyone I know has watched the movies I still cannot bring myself to view. Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman, and the Mummy flourish in my imagination. Monsters like King Kong, Godzilla, Mothman, Rodan, and The Alien take over the world at their leisure. The mere mention of Freddy, Jason or Chuckie causes me to collapse into a cesspool of primordial fear.
My childhood dreams were nightmares full of unspeakable horrors like nuclear disasters, terrorists, monsters, arterial spray, intestinal gore, running without getting anywhere and a paralyzing fear that failed to leave even when I jerked awake with screams and tears. In that safe, sheltered childhood I dreamed of every imaginable horror movie I never saw and every monster from every book I never read.
At age appropriate moments, my daughter was exposed to the delicious grip of fear and the exhilarating sense of liberation from its danger when the monsters were vanquished and the credits rolled over the happy endings. Over the years, as I came face to face with the dreaded spooks, ghouls, and swarming doom of living, I have also learned to conquer the fear. We all need to do it, so we don’t go all to pieces when something scary happens, even when we must eventually face our own death
Our dreams should be full of music, love, poetry, fantasy, and orgasms.
