Dreaming of Drowning

AND THE NIGHT I DIDN’T WAKE UP

There was salt in the air, and the sun was out as I walked down the long, white shoreline. I wanted to sit and enjoy it but glancing behind me, I noticed that I wasn’t alone. A long way off, there was a figure. The only detail I could make out was the long, hooded cloak it wore. It was hunched over and not really running but lurching forward with an eerie gait. It made me nervous. I tried to walk a little faster and kept moving.

 
It wasn’t long before clouds drifted over the sun and a wind picked up. The waves grew aggressive, and thunder rumbled. I stopped to look up at a black sky and realized that I was on the edge of a massive storm. I didn’t know what to do. There was nowhere for me to go and I was terrified.

My frantic thoughts were interrupted when a large hand grasped my shoulder.

I spun around and found myself face-to-face with the cloaked thing, alarmed that it had managed to get to me so quickly. Up close, it was grotesquely proportioned, looming over me at least three heads taller with broad shoulders and a sickly skinny waist. Its ragged shroud was filthy, whipping about in the wind but never revealing its face. It smelled like decay. I wanted to get away, but I felt like I couldn’t move. The thunder roared, and raindrops started to hit my cheeks.

 
It raised a gray arm and pointed out at the sea. It had long, dirty fingernails. I looked out at the black water, and somehow I understood. I was being instructed. The only way out of the storm was to swim across that furious ocean. If I was going to survive, I would have to save myself.

My body responded before I had a chance to think it through. Seconds later, I was waist-deep in the icy waves. I took a deep breath and dove under the foam as lightning lit up the sky.

It wasn’t long before I was numb, then sputtering, then choking on mouthfuls of briny black water. There was salt water in my eyes, filling my nostrils, burning the back of my throat. My feet couldn’t reach the bottom, and waves slammed into my face, pulling me under, making me lose all sense of direction. I was rolling under the water and couldn’t tell which way was up. I panicked. I was going to drown, and there was nothing I could do.

Then I woke up. I was cold, sweaty, and so wonderfully relieved. But for months, I kept having that same nightmare. At first, only once every few weeks. After a while, I had it almost every night.

Some nights I did better than others, but I never got very far. I always woke up feeling like I had just barely escaped my own death, the fishy tang of salt water still in my mouth. But I always woke up before the water got into my lungs, and I took comfort in that. Until one night.

“Salt water came in through my cracked lips, filling my mouth and
hitting the back of my raw throat…”

I had just dove in and was cautiously starting to carve my arms into the waves. Then came the freezing, the choking, and the sinking. Only this time, I kept sinking. My heart slammed against my ribs. My lungs felt like they would burst. The pressure from the deep made my head and body ache. I couldn’t see anything. I could only hear the dull roar of waves and muffled thunder. Any moment I’ll wake up, I told myself.

But I didn’t wake up. Holding my breath had become unbearable, so I exhaled. I didn’t want to die, but I couldn’t see a way out. Salt water came in through my cracked lips, filling my mouth and hitting the back of my raw throat as my body began to breathe in as a final reflex.

 
Then, somehow, I could see, and I managed to stop. I wasn’t alone anymore. There was a gray, ragged cloak floating next to me down there in the depths. It was the thing from the beach. It lifted its hand to pull the shroud from its face, and to my surprise, it was a man, not a monster.

I can’t describe him. I had never seen him before, but he was familiar. I liked him. He made me feel calm and cared for. Then he asked quietly, “If you could not swim across, why didn’t you ever ask to be carried?”

Immediately I was angry. I wanted to defend myself. I hadn’t known that being carried was an option. Why hadn’t he told me that before?

Then my lungs started to burn, and I remembered I was on the brink of drowning. It didn’t matter if I hadn’t been told. How could I have thought

that I could make it on my own? My defenses gave way to shame. Then a thought came: perhaps this man would help me?

 
I was startled by the simplicity of it. Why else would he have come? In fact, I found myself certain that he would save me if I asked. Overjoyed, I opened my mouth again to beg for mercy.

 
But he vanished. The waters rushed in. My lungs grew cold and heavy with liquid, and I started to fade out.

 
They say if you die in a dream, you die in real life. I wonder if that means you can also be brought back to life in one?

“Out of the depths

I cry to you, O Lord!

 O Lord, hear my voice!

Let your ears be attentive

to the voice

of my pleas for mercy!

If you, O Lord,

should mark iniquities,

O Lord, who could stand?

But with you

there is forgiveness,

that you may be feared.

I wait for the Lord,

my soul waits…”

Psalm 130:1-5 (ESV)