Nightmares

Today Nancy posted this:

I washed Alexander off after breakfast this morning and then took him to the towel hanging on the oven door to dry off.

“Don’t put me in there,” he told me. “Don’t COOK me!”

And this reminded me of a recurring nightmare I had as a child. Now, I am nobody if not a person who has A TON of nightmares, including the recurring variety...but I do not think I have ever shared this particular nightmare.

I know that I have shared my terrible dog nightmare, in several of its iterations, multiple times with multiple people; but not the cooking nightmare. I never could tell it--especially not to my mom. Because I loved my mom dearly, and I knew that she loved me and would NEVER cook me. And yet, in my nightmares, she did. Over and over again.

Also chopped me up. And mixed me up with a mixer.

When I was very young, my mom was in the Primary Presidency, and they were the villains in my nightmare. All these lovely women who I adored--the Primary Presidency! June Clifton was the PP. I loved to go to her house with my mom, while the other kids were in school, and she gave me a little stool to sit on with a pile of books to look at. And also, she had this marvelous huge old cat who loved to be petted. She was a calm and gentle woman and not in the least scary. On the other hand, her husband, Dale--I was actually factually scared of him, and would go to great lengths to avoid him if he was anywhere near me. (He was also not anyone to be afraid of--a really nice man, but he liked to tease, and I didn't like being teased. Hence the fear of him.)

But in my nightmares, it was never an actually scary person, it was my mom and June--and one or two other women, sometimes, but I can't remember her/them as clearly in the nightmare. Although it might have been June Gough sometimes? Because, in my nightmares, the children designated for the chopping block were always me and Melanie Gough. (Whereas, my sister Arlene and her sister Susan were never appointed to be the food.)

Sometimes we were made into cakes or cookies and sometimes into casseroles, but the chopping and mixing and cooking were always in the nightmares. And always my mom and June Clifton were doing it. 

How messed up is that? 

It always started with a presidency meeting (because I went to lots of those with my mom) and they were planning a party or some activity that required food, and inevitably, in my nightmares, I was on the menu. Me and Melanie Gough. Later, when Marie and Margaret moved into our ward, Marie joined Melanie and I on the nightmare menu. But Margaret, like Arlene and Susan, was always not destined for the oven.

And the dream would involve all the food preparation, which was pretty freaky to watch happening when you are the food! And finally, the oven. Being me, the freaky parts of the dream were extremely detailed, and I would wake up pretty much terrified, but also kind of afraid to do what was the most comforting thing, running and getting into bed with my mom, who had just been the villain in my dream. But I often did do just that, because she was my mom! And she loved me! And it was just a stupid nightmare.

This nightmare, like the dog nightmare, recurred over many years, but not as many years as the dog nightmare. I guess once I was out of primary, I was safe!! 

But, though the nightmare was scary while it was happening, and I would wake up after it panicky and deeply afraid, I never really took this nightmare seriously, because it made no sense. My mom would never cook me. June Clifton would never cook me. It was scary, but also ridiculous. Even at four years old, I knew that.

The dog dream, however, was completely plausible, because on the prairies, dog packs were an actual thing. They really did happen.  I saw them at home; I saw them at school. Not in the ways of my dream, with invisible walls and things like that. But I was in high school when Arlene and I were chased by a real dog pack, so me dreaming about dog packs was terrifying in a way that the cooking nightmare never was.

So, there you go, a little window into the world of Myrna's dreams.