I love seeing nightmares in my sleep. But I feel they’ve been getting more diabolical recently. A part of me (a lesser part) looks forward to it. The other part wants to tread lightly or even take a step back. My dreaming mind roams nigh that border where there are thrill and awe on the one side and the panic attacks of the miserable mentally afflicted on the other. Hopefully, it’s just an illusion created by the fact that the older dreams fade in memory and appear less frightening.

Here’s what I saw the other night for example. There was an aerial attack on my city, and our armed forces were testing a new anti-air defense system — colossal, devastating tornados. It wasn’t bad, even though I was caught in the middle of it, and the tornados looked grand and wondrous in the gloom of the night. But the tension was building. I then tried to fall asleep back home. (I often dream of trying to wake up or fall asleep.) I was feeling exposed. There might have been no ceiling in my apartment, and there were gaps in the walls. I saw, or imagined, people watching me from a distance. It was like a terrible episode of a paranoid delusion. But it got worse. Someone pushed a cat into my bedroom. The cat hid under the table and moved in a strange, repetitive, unnatural manner. It was hard to see through the shadows of the darkened room. I leaned closer to take a better look. Then, a disturbing realization: the cat’s eyes were cut out, its ears were cut off. Some other parts may’ve been dismembered too. Toy, plush eyes and ears were sewn in their place. This woke me up.

In The Godfather, they sneaked the horse’s head into someone’s bedroom. Were they trying to be scary? Horses’ heads are being chopped all the time, before the horse is eaten. Maybe your cook got drunk and lost his way. Imagine if they sneaked the cat from my dream instead. You’d be appalled, knowing you’re dealing with a total psychopath or some wicked cult.

Here’s another weird little dream I had a while back. I don’t remember anything happening. Maybe it was a dreamless slumber at first. Amid this nothingness, death suddenly emerged. It seized me and started to pull me down, down, down below. Despite the panic, I had such a clear realization of what was happening: I knew I was asleep, and I knew I had to wake up immediately in order to survive. It’s hard to tell how long my struggle lasted. I managed to wake up, eventually.

It may be tempting to appear nonchalant in the face of the ongoing war, but I think it slowly erodes my mental health.