Dreams after all are dreams only. But some say they carry hidden meanings too. We feel good if it's a sweet dream else we just shrug them off and don't care about any hidden message whatsoever.
However, you can shrug off dreams that portend evil only if you are mentally strong enough and also able to understand the difference between a dream and reality.
But what would you do if you were a child? Yes, for a child and also for those adults as are faint hearted, dreams that are dreadful and convey unpleasant messages are difficult to ignore and forget.
Even as one would like to overcome the dread, yet it gets etched in one’s memory permanently.
I carry such memories of scary dreams of my childhood days even after six decades hence.
It was about times when I was on the verge of entering my teens. In those days, during summer the whole family used to sleep in the parlours inside the house. Being the youngest among the brothers, my place was fixed next to my mother's.
As it is, there was a door at the direction of my feet that opened to the side courtyard of our house. Although I felt uneasy about this, I smoehow couldn't tell so to anyone, not even to my mother. I felt secure otherwise due to the presence of mother at my side.
Sleeping in the parlour was a break from the routine of sleeping inside a room and was really enjoyable. However, it had it's flip side too.
Because, sleeping there I used to experience a very scary dream in which a cat like animal black in colour and with red shining eyes, as in the logo of Eveready Battery, but bigger than a normal domestic one would come in through the door at my feet and scratch my legs with it's sharp pointed claws. Then it would disappear quickly through the same door.
Sometimes, it would also try to drag me outside holding my feet. It was electrifyingly quick in it's movements and felt impossible to apprehend. I would scream in my dreams at times and felt mortally scared. In the morning, I could see scratch marks on my feet too!!!
Being clueless, I finally broke the dream to my mother one day. She was deeply concerned and made me sleep a little away from the door to her other side.
But the dream didn't stop and went on and off. I was really much scared and wished it stopped. It happened only in the summers when we slept in the parlours not at other times.
My mother and other elders in the family used to discuss about the incident as being the work of some evil spirit, a 'kala purush'.
So, I was given to wear something of a tabiz on my arms to prevent the dream. I don't remember if it ever worked because as I grew up my place of sleep in the summers changed and also I grew confident psychologically.
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Viswamitra (24/10/2022)
(Revised 14.11.2022)
