Trapped in a Nightmare

"Hello Doctor".

"Come in, please, have a sit as comfortable as possible."

"Thank you, Doctor, thank you."

"And how may I help you?"

"Doctor, my name is Maria Luz Heaven; I’m 35 years old and my husband 38. We have three boys of ages 12, 11 and 6. The younger one, Carlos Alberto, was our last attempt, after a lapse of five years we had decided not to have more children, to try to have another one, a little girl this time, in the family. But, well, that’s what we thought just before get it..." Maria Luz made a paused and swallowed something, very similar to false pride, because she felt very ashamed of talking about something so intimate, even when she was front of a psychiatry doctor, like now, and absolutely alone. Notwithstanding, she got overcoming that internal barrier and dared to speak.

"The reason I came, doctor, is that I've had horrible nightmares lately"

"Nightmares are like that, Maria Luz, horrible dreams, and often without apparent meaning, because they are our undercover fears."  It said the doctor kindly, as to relax her, to make Maria be easier being explicit in explaining her problem.

"Doctor, I dream that, for some unknown reason, I am confined in a sanitarium for mentally ill ... Doctor, it's horrible. I dream that I'm in a room surrounded by very annoying people, which I cannot share the slightest conversation, I say this just to mention the basic activities in which I am forced to participate, if you can call it like this, staying absolutely still, not talking or moving, as dead, because actually, my mind is not there. However, in addition to this psychological torture, I receive constant abuse by doctors and nurses, who treat me as a patient and I resist, because I'm totally healthy. Even so, they do not listen to me, neither pay attention, do not care my explanations. I face them to give me therapy; I do not like electric shocks, neither the ice-water baths. Nevertheless, I cannot fight them, and finally, they've got me. I've got peace of mind, in my nightmare, only when I get to block my mind, or I reach to my bedroom and got to fall asleep. It's in that moments when I achieve finally wake up and see my husband next to me, asleep. However, the dream leaves me very upset and nervous, that truly scared me that I can to lose my mind."  

"Maria Luz ... -Dr. started questioning to her- ... Are they always the similar nightmares, a sequence of them with the same subject or completely different?"

"Doctor, now I'm even afraid to go to sleep, because the nightmares have been repetitive, slightly different, although related to the same topic ... Even so, I have others with very nice beginning; nevertheless, on their way, they become horrible, to the point that I try to shake my body, move my arms and scream loudly, just to get out of the bad dream, but I can't achieve it easily.”

"And how are those nightmares?" The doctor asked eagerly, guessing that there might find the explanation of the tormentor dream. 

"As I said, Doctor, these dreams begin very nice, because we're home with joy preparing our luggage due to our three days of camping. The children are very excited preparing their backpacks with their personal belongings. My husband is in command of preparing the equipment for the tent, the sleeping bags, the cooler box for the refreshments and loading all up on the bed-truck, as well as everything related to the maintenance of it, in that we'll travel. On the other hand, I'm responsible for the sandwiches and juices that we're going to drink on the road plus choose the fresh and canned food for the three days, besides everything about Carlos Alberto."

"You are quite right, Maria Luz, what you're telling me is highly nice because I've done these trips with my family too, which telling the true they're very strenuous but wonderful... -said the doctor, and she added-... Now tell me, when or what makes those dreams become a nightmare? ".

"Doctor, I'll try to be brief to say directly that in my dream, we're traveling to the Grand Canyon by the 66 Highway, admiring the beauty of the landscape. However, at dusk, we take a shortcut that goes by the edge of it. This road is not paved and is very rough, and I say, I mean I rather I beg my husband, to come back to the main road and spend the night in any motel, just for that night. Nevertheless, he insists he know the way, and that I shouldn't worry about anything, because he's toured this way with his parents when he was a teenager. Doctor, there is when it begins my despair, I feel that something very bad is going to happen, especially when the truck starts to jump up and down due to the poor condition of the road. Doctor, I've dreamed so many times this that I know what's coming up. I recognize the road on we're going through and I know a terrible accident will happen. I ask my husband to stop, that do not continue, but he don't listen to me, and we go straight where I already know, our fateful destiny. Doctor, at a curve of the road appears a large pickup truck; I think it called Big-Foot, which is coming against us, in the opposite direction, with very powerful lights on, making my husband loses his sense of direction. Doctor, oh my god, the truck goes out of the road and tumbles down in a very deep ditch. I've dreamed it so many times, but always I suffer the unspeakable, if it isn't the same, worse. I see how everything turns inside the truck, falling over the cliff; I hear the screams of my husband and my children. Oh my God, my children, my children, each time I dream I see them die, but fortunately, I realize I'm in a nightmare, and I do my best to wake up... then, suddenly everything turns dark, just to succeed, to see the light of the reality again. Doctor, you don't know how upset I'm when I wake up on my bed next to my husband. Sometimes he wakes up and hugs me as giving me protection, adding: "Mary, you had a bad dream, I hear you moan as you shake anguished ...” After I wake up, I look for my children in their bedroom and when I see them, healthy, sleeping peacefully, I caress their hairs without waking up them, so I am happy to find them in their beds. Then, my daily routine wraps me. I take a cold shower that has the virtue of allay my concerns. Then, I make breakfast, I give a kiss good bye to my husband when he goes to work, I take my kids to school in my way when I go to the law office where work as an executive secretary ... What I mean is that I have no time to think again about the nightmare. But, after a while, two or three weeks, or sometimes months, the nightmare returns back."

Maria Luz stares at the doctor, anxious, waiting for an answer, and she says, without much concern: "Honey, Maria Luz, I'm going to prescribe you some pills so you can relax during sleep and can sleep well, and these disappear over time"

Maria Luz returns home quieter and that night, after she sent her children to sleep, she followed the recommendations of the doctor taking the relaxing pills, before going to sleep in the arms of her beloved husband.

"Poor woman... - a doctor said at a medical board of a hospital for mental illness- ... We failed to bring her back to the reality from the accident that happened two months ago, where her husband and three children died. When she opens her eyes, do not stop screaming desperately, until the nurse gives a sedative shot to make her to sleep, then already calm, she even smiles constantly as if he lived a very nice dream."