By Sinead Stubbins -
For someone who was never allowed to watch scary movies – and who still avoids them, even as an adult – I sure do spend a lot of time thinking about the ways supernatural beings could murder me in my sleep. Beds that will suck me inside an alternate dimension full of monsters with claws; a ghostly creature hiding underneath my mattress, waiting for me to place a single bare foot on the ground; a murderous hundred-year-old poltergeist who appears to me in the mirror when I brush my teeth – these are the kinds of things that occupy my late-night thoughts.
When I was younger, this fear consumed me as soon as it was time for bed. Every night while I was being tucked in, like clockwork, I’d ask my parents, “Will I be safe?” – a ritual I recited for years like a prayer. (I wonder if they were ever tempted to say, “No idea! Good luck, though.”) I just felt so strongly that my demise would occur once darkness fell. It didn’t help that, at the time, I was sharing a bedroom with someone who I had a strong suspicion could be a demon from the beyond.
When she was young, my little sister looked like a classic creepy horror movie child. She was pale, with big blue eyes and long dark hair. It wasn’t that she had the personality of a horror movie child – she didn’t casually converse with invisible spirits at the dinner table, mutter nonsense under her breath, or walk down the staircase like a spider (though we didn’t have a staircase; perhaps she just didn’t have the opportunity). But I felt as though the universe was trying to warn me I should be on guard, nonetheless. When I was eight or nine, I used to have nightmares about my sister. It felt like I dreamt about her for at least a year, but it was probably only a few months (when you’re little, time can only be measured by school holidays and Harry Potter book releases). In the dream, I would wake up and she’d be standing at the foot of my bed, wearing a long white nightgown that looked like it was from the 1800s. Her long hair would partially hide her glazed face, but I saw a hint of a narrowed eye. Her head was tilted down at a menacing angle that told me, “I intend to haunt then kill you with my supernatural demon child powers.” I never went back to sleep after those dreams.
Was I so dumb to believe that the late-night visions were the work of a higher power trying to tell me something? It’s said that dreams come from the unconscious during the ‘theta brainwave stage’. Some people think that when we’re in this stage, our brains pick up cues, like the energy of places and people around us. Our subconscious tries to provide us insights, and even give us spiritual guidance. Both Abraham Lincoln and Joan of Arc predicted their own deaths in a dream – perhaps I wasn’t so different from Abe and Jo?
Eventually the dreams stopped. My sister’s hair was cut into a short bob (quite fashionable, I must say). I didn’t need to confirm with my parents if I would or would not be slain in my sleep. It’s easy to see now that the dreams were probably a manifestation of all the anxiety I was feeling, transitioning from being an only child to the eldest of three. When you’re a kid, the idea of getting less attention is akin to doing battle with a supernatural tormenter. But a bit of me always wondered if there was something spiritually iffy going on there. There’s no harm in checking under the bed now and then.