When I was a child I would have dreams about God. He would warn me against doing something to my sister, pestering her by taking a toy or an hair accessory. The warning wouldn't be severe but I knew that if I disobeyed I would suffer his wraith.
In the end, I would always do what I was warned against. It was not out of spite or an overwhelming desire to upset my sister but as a reflex that was somehow already programmed into the dream. Doing what I was warned against was how the dream played out.
And in my dream, when I pestered my sister or did whatever I had been warned against I could sense God's immediate presence and my body would be filled with electricity.
Except the electricity wouldn't shock me and knock me to another dream or wake me up and away from the nightmare. The electricity would grip me and paralyze me and drag me awake where I would lay on my bed, staring into the darkness as painful prickling coursed through my body.
From the edges of my vision I would also begin to sense a presence. A dark entity slowly approaching to engulf me and take me up into its reality. I would strain my body against the paralysis and the electricity, trying to force my body into movement, release my voice to scream, do everything in my power to free myself and escape from the darkness.
Eventually, with enough effort I would erupt in a violent convulsion and sometimes a little yelp and run from the room, not looking around, to the confusion of my parents. They had no idea what I was experiencing and helped me back to bed and left a light on to ward off the monsters of, what they thought was, my nightmare.
These experiences have never ceased, some years there are more than others, but they persist. And though the preceding dreams are not of any recognizable god, the grip, the electricity and the approaching dark presence remains unchanged.
There is yet more to say on these Night Terrors, but Overture is planning a series of illustrations concerning these happenings and this seemed like an appropriate introduction.
