Frankenstein, Dracula and Lassie

Children are amazing creatures. As children we learn and grow so quickly and we are so resilient.

I am amazed at how my brain protected me as a child. As my brother abused me, my brain tried to reach out to those around me to help me.

I remember the recurring nightmares of my childhood. As I woke my parents with my screams each night, it was my brain trying to tell them the truth. Unfortunately they weren't listening. Maybe that's a bit harsh. It's less likely that they weren't listening, but that they didn't know how to interpret it all.

The nightmare started off the same way. It was an early summer evening and I had gone to bed. I knew it was early summer as it was still light outside and my bedroom window had a screen in it. As I laid in my bed reciting nursery rhymes the sun disappeared faster than in real life. It was one of the cues to me that it was a dream. That was one of the oddest parts of my nightmares, I knew they were nightmares while I was in them.

After I was asleep in my nightmare, the variation would come. One nightmare had Lassie breaking through the screen on my window and attacking me. I would try my hardest to beat her down with my pillow, but it wasn't enough. She snarled and growled while jumping at me. The second nightmare had Frankenstein and Dracula come into my room through the bedroom door. They would taunt me, knowing that I knew it was a nightmare.

I knew there were only two ways to end the nightmares. I had to either scream at the top of my lungs so my parents would come wake me, or I had to turn on the bedroom light. In order to turn on the light I needed to get out of my bed and cross the floor to flip on the light switch beside the door. Frankenstein and Dracula would take turns standing between my bed and the door. I could never reach the light switch. Instead I would scream. In my nightmare as I would scream the sound came through in both the sleeping and waking world.

In the beginning my mom would come into my room and wake me. She'd then take me into my parents' room where I would fall back to sleep after searching each corner for Frankenstein, Dracula and Lassie. As the nightmares continued she stopped waking me. In my dreams I would attempt to scream only to have no sound come forth. I knew my parents could hear me though. Each day my mother would tell me how I was screaming again, as if I had control over my dreams. Each day I promised that I would try to not do it again, but we both knew it would happen again.

Eventually the nightmares stopped. My mom said that I "grew out of it". What she didn't know is that I found a flashlight that I kept under my mattress. Each night as the sun went down I would pull the sheets over my head. Then I'd turn on the flashlight and read. I would read until the letters blurred into a black blob on the page. Only then would I allow myself to sleep.

Eventually the nightmares did go away for good. That wasn't until I no longer lived under the same roof as my brother though. To this day it amazes me how even though I was afraid to tell my parents what was going on, in the deepest part of my soul I wanted them to save me. I was just a little kid and I deserved to be protected. While they didn't protect me, I did.