Night Terror

I like to sleep.  A lot.  It is a favourite hobby of mine.  The only problem is that I have this incessant imagination that just will not shut up.  Today my dad recalled an occasion last week that I had forgotten...I woke up, saw someone hovering over my bed (yes I know people can't hover) and ran into his room panicked and rambling that somebody was in my room.

I had forgotten this because: a) it was such a brief interlude between me waking up and calming down and going back to sleep... and b) this kind of thing happens to me all the time.  As a child my mom lay with me for hours in the night so I would go back to sleep after having a nightmare.  My sister, who will be 12 in August, has previously ran into my room when she's been woken by my scream and had to comfort me. What causes nightmares?  Are the images that seep into reality really there or an extension to some dream I don't remember?  People have told me it's ghosts but I'm not sure I believe them.  More, I don't want to believe them.

Homer (The Odyssey) says: "Dreams surely are difficult, confusing, and not everything in them is brought to pass for mankind. For fleeting dreams have two gates: one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those which pass through the one of sawn ivory are deceptive, bringing tidings which come to nought, but those which issue from the one of polished horn bring true results when a mortal sees them."

This concept of night terrors, of dreams that "bring true results" and those that "come to nought" reminds me of Laura Marlings 'Night Terror'...let's hope I'll always have someone in my corner to take care of me if I scream within the night.  In fact, if we're hoping for something, let's hope this doesn't scare off every man in the world.  Christ.