We had just moved to Georgia 4 years ago and we had really begun to settle in. Four days earlier our family had cheered the Atlanta Braves on to victory. My youngest son had just started 4th grade and was doing so well. My older children were starting off well in Middle and High School. Even our dogs were getting used to the heat and humidity.
My youngest son fell asleep on a trip to Macon an hour away and began to have a vivid dream. The dream was made stranger because it was interactive. He would ask a question and I just for fun would answer or add detail. For example he called out "why am I sleeping on the floor in this motel?" I replied "it was too expensive to get you kids a separate room." He said "Can I sleep in the end of your bed?" At first it was funny but when we got to Macon we could not wake him so went back home.
The next day in his dream he was convinced that he had to go deliver papers even though no one in our family had a paper route. We locked the door and my wife made arrangements to take him to see a doctor. When I came home my wife was very concerned about him. She said he was sleeping a lot and having those vivid dreams. She said the doctor felt like he had a flu that lead to an infection and his body was reacting to the infection. His dreams grew more vivid that night and he tried to leave the house several times in his sleep. The next day she took him back to the doctor and they had a hard time keeping him awake. The doctor then thought maybe he was allergic to his asthma medication, but we couldn't keep him awake even in the doctor's office. My wife and I knew that there was something seriously wrong with our little boy but hoped the doctor was right he just had an allergic reaction to some meds.
That night began the worst weekend of my life. I had decided to have him sleep in the family room, so that I could watch over him better than if he had slept in his own room and I in mine. My wife was worn out so we arranged for her to spell me early in the morning.
My son fell asleep by 8 that night. Almost immediately he began to dream but the dream was violent. Someone was chasing him and he picked up items to throw at whatever was chasing him. In his terror he tried to run out of our home and flail his arms. I am trained to gently restrain people and used my training to keep him safe. His terror made it necessary for me to use all of my strength to keep him more or less in one general area of our family room while not hurting him in any way. The dream lasted 15 minutes. When he woke up he immediately told me what the dream was about. The dream was by far more terrifying than any horror story I ever heard. After telling me the dream he lost a huge chunk of his memory. The dream would continue ever 30-40 minutes the whole night long. Finally about 8:00 A.M Saturday he had the worst of his nightmares!
8:00 A.M. My son fell in to a deep sleep that at first seemed like he was finally getting a rest and I took my first breath of relief in over 12 hours. At that moment his terrifying nightmare began. He started screaming and yelling that someone was shooting at him and that they had released the dogs. As I tried hard to restrain him I watched in horror as at the moment he yelled for someone to get the dogs off of him, I could see where the dogs in his nightmare were biting him. I watched how the flesh on his legs, arms and even his belly went inward each time the dogs bit him in his nightmare. I saw him open his eyes in complete terror and felt his body go rigid each time he yelled out "they are shooting at me." I saw him pick up a music box and throw it at the dogs in his nightmare.
I had worked very hard that night to be calm for my son's comfort. I was doing fine until my son got attacked by whoever was chasing him and the dogs biting him. At that moment I wept and felt a complete and utter hopeless feeling come over me. I was losing my son a little bit at a time and I couldn't stop it. I didn't know why what was occuring was occuring or what was attacking his mind. All I knew was he was going away and there was nothing I could do about it.
My son's nightmare finally came to an end and once again he told me about his nightmare and once again he lost another chunk of his memory. The rest of Saturday his nightmares became less violent and I got some sleep. We kept hoping this awful experience was a direct result of him being allergic to his meds.
Saturday was another bad night for my son but his dreams were not violent. Sunday he seemed almost himself but had lost more than half of his memory. Sunday while we ate the noon meal my son fell asleep and had a very funny dream. He let us know he was in a bottle in a water park. He kept saying wheeeeeeeeeee, wheeeeeeeeeeeee once in awhile he would tell us where he was. "Now I am going down a water slide in a bottle wheeeeeeeeeeee." His dream was his longest ever close to a half hour and we enjoyed it. It was nice to hear my boy laugh.We enjoyed it until he awoke and no longer recognized his siblings. We rushed him to the local hospital.
When we brought him in to the emergency room my wife and I were about to have totally different type of nightmare than he had. When we admitted him to the hospital in describing what was happening to my son in our weariness we used a word we regretted and did not mean to use when describing his dreams. We described his dreams as hallucinations. That was to cause us major problems in the next 3 days.
End of part 1
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Comments: 32
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I have had more than my fair share of vivid, detailed, and memorable nightmares but at least I can awaken from them. I often use them as inspiration for my stories.
But what your son experienced are not ordinary nightmares. I have never heard of anything like this before. How terrifying for him and all of your family!
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I will be interested to read further....
It almost sounds like some sort of virus or parisite?