The Scariest Thing is a Double
A few weeks back I had the scariest dream of my life. I regularly dream about serial killers and monsters coming after me, cruise ships sinking while I'm on them, and snakes strangling me - but this dream was scarier than any of them, because the monster was human.
I don't know if I'm the only human this afraid of doppelgängers, but I am. I don't mind clones - use science to explain my exact double and I'm cool with it. I don't mind long lost twins, clones, people who look similair, et cet. But doppelgängers? Spooky exact copies of people that turn up without explanation?
I wasn't the one with a doppelgänger in this dream, though. It was a random guy I've never met before.
The dream started out line any random one: I was at the movies with my dad, and we were seeing a Superman movie. Well, in this movie Superman had a male love interest, and on the way home my dad kept complaining about it. We got in a fight, as you do over gay superheroes, and he kicked me out of the car to make me walk home. He's only done that in real life once, late at night, over 2 miles from home. I won't say I deserved it, but I do understand why he did it, since I was in a bad mood and taking it out on him for no fair reason. He wouldn't do it for something as stupid as an argument over a movie in real life, but in my dream we were really passionate about this movie. So while I was walking home after he drove off, I walked by a really hot black boy, a few years older than me - so maybe 21, 22? And that was it. For me. I kept walking after checking him out as I went by and went on with my day and my walk home.
But the dream didn't care about me anymore - after that it followed this young black guy. And I had been reading a lot about police brutality before I went to sleep, so it seeped into my dreams, all these stories of racist cops and brutality and conspiracies. Because the police do get away with a lot. Dirty cops get away with a lot. And cops need to stop killing black kids, teens, and adult. Cops need to stop killing black people. Tamir Rice was 12 and was shot instantly and remorselessly, all for playing with an obviously fake toy gun. So I was outraged by this, and it bled into my dreams, as things tend to do with me.
So this guy walked past me without noticing me, he was focused on getting home - but when he got there the door was open, and his mother had been shot in the living room, and there was a gun there, and a cop had done it, and he knew it - in the way you just know things in dreams - that a cop had done it, and in that same way he knew they were going to frame him. So he closed the door, called his aunt and grandma to help him clean it out, and set out to prove the cop who had done it (the police chief, as it were) and things went from bad to worse.
Because that's when the dream turned scary. And I mean, I was shaken for the rest of the day when I woke up scary. The boy followed the cops to the woods to check out what they were up to, and long story short they were killing people and ditching the bodies in the woods, there was a pile of corpses in a short ravine and a pipe/slide/chute thing they pushed them down, and it was disgusting, and scary - but the scariest part came when the copy showed up.
The scene flashed to this boy walking through a dirt road in the woods, and something rustled in the trees - and when he turned to look he saw himself coming out of the trees.
And in knowing things just because you know them, as dreams work, I knew without having to wonder that this clone was a normal human. He wasn't a scientific clone or a magic monster or a demon. He was just a person who looked a lot like another person. He had the skills to easily kill the main character, and he was going to do that and take over his life, and no one would ever know or be able to stop him or know what had really happened to the main character. He would vanish and be replaced and no one would know and this stranger who looked like him would take over his life until it was time for him to take the fall for the death of the mother. And it wasn't a big deal to the copy - he would feel no remorse and he wouldn't hesitate. It was no big deal to him.
And that was horrifying to me. The idea of someone killing you where no one will ever find you and taking over your life, it was so fucking awful, so scary to me, that I woke up frozen in the dark. I couldn't breathe for a minute. I was shaken for the entire day, looking over my shoulder.
So that's what scares me: cops, and random doppelgängers. Just, all doppelgänger in general. It's scary, and weird, and it creeps me out. I have a lot of issues with mirrors, too, and I have dreams about my reflection moving without me or turning on me, too, which always fuck me up for days on end afterwards.
I don't know why I'm writing about this here. Food for thought, maybe? Or maybe I just like talking about dreams. Or the things that scare me. Or both.
All I know is, doppelgängers are creepy, cops both scare and enrage me, and I should stop focusing on stuff I hate before I go to sleep, or I'll be doomed to have nightmares for all time. And now, I'm gonna get back to work.
I don't know if I'm the only human this afraid of doppelgängers, but I am. I don't mind clones - use science to explain my exact double and I'm cool with it. I don't mind long lost twins, clones, people who look similair, et cet. But doppelgängers? Spooky exact copies of people that turn up without explanation?
I wasn't the one with a doppelgänger in this dream, though. It was a random guy I've never met before.
The dream started out line any random one: I was at the movies with my dad, and we were seeing a Superman movie. Well, in this movie Superman had a male love interest, and on the way home my dad kept complaining about it. We got in a fight, as you do over gay superheroes, and he kicked me out of the car to make me walk home. He's only done that in real life once, late at night, over 2 miles from home. I won't say I deserved it, but I do understand why he did it, since I was in a bad mood and taking it out on him for no fair reason. He wouldn't do it for something as stupid as an argument over a movie in real life, but in my dream we were really passionate about this movie. So while I was walking home after he drove off, I walked by a really hot black boy, a few years older than me - so maybe 21, 22? And that was it. For me. I kept walking after checking him out as I went by and went on with my day and my walk home.
But the dream didn't care about me anymore - after that it followed this young black guy. And I had been reading a lot about police brutality before I went to sleep, so it seeped into my dreams, all these stories of racist cops and brutality and conspiracies. Because the police do get away with a lot. Dirty cops get away with a lot. And cops need to stop killing black kids, teens, and adult. Cops need to stop killing black people. Tamir Rice was 12 and was shot instantly and remorselessly, all for playing with an obviously fake toy gun. So I was outraged by this, and it bled into my dreams, as things tend to do with me.
So this guy walked past me without noticing me, he was focused on getting home - but when he got there the door was open, and his mother had been shot in the living room, and there was a gun there, and a cop had done it, and he knew it - in the way you just know things in dreams - that a cop had done it, and in that same way he knew they were going to frame him. So he closed the door, called his aunt and grandma to help him clean it out, and set out to prove the cop who had done it (the police chief, as it were) and things went from bad to worse.
Because that's when the dream turned scary. And I mean, I was shaken for the rest of the day when I woke up scary. The boy followed the cops to the woods to check out what they were up to, and long story short they were killing people and ditching the bodies in the woods, there was a pile of corpses in a short ravine and a pipe/slide/chute thing they pushed them down, and it was disgusting, and scary - but the scariest part came when the copy showed up.
The scene flashed to this boy walking through a dirt road in the woods, and something rustled in the trees - and when he turned to look he saw himself coming out of the trees.
And in knowing things just because you know them, as dreams work, I knew without having to wonder that this clone was a normal human. He wasn't a scientific clone or a magic monster or a demon. He was just a person who looked a lot like another person. He had the skills to easily kill the main character, and he was going to do that and take over his life, and no one would ever know or be able to stop him or know what had really happened to the main character. He would vanish and be replaced and no one would know and this stranger who looked like him would take over his life until it was time for him to take the fall for the death of the mother. And it wasn't a big deal to the copy - he would feel no remorse and he wouldn't hesitate. It was no big deal to him.
And that was horrifying to me. The idea of someone killing you where no one will ever find you and taking over your life, it was so fucking awful, so scary to me, that I woke up frozen in the dark. I couldn't breathe for a minute. I was shaken for the entire day, looking over my shoulder.
So that's what scares me: cops, and random doppelgängers. Just, all doppelgänger in general. It's scary, and weird, and it creeps me out. I have a lot of issues with mirrors, too, and I have dreams about my reflection moving without me or turning on me, too, which always fuck me up for days on end afterwards.
I don't know why I'm writing about this here. Food for thought, maybe? Or maybe I just like talking about dreams. Or the things that scare me. Or both.
All I know is, doppelgängers are creepy, cops both scare and enrage me, and I should stop focusing on stuff I hate before I go to sleep, or I'll be doomed to have nightmares for all time. And now, I'm gonna get back to work.
.png)
Comments
Post a Comment