Vivid Dreams

Lately my wife and I have been taking supplements to increase our health. One of these supplements is 5-HTP.

5-HTP is an over-the-counter supplement which boosts one’s serotonin and serves as an antidepressant, appetite suppressant, and a sleep aid. One of the side effects of this supplement is vivid dreams. I have had some very vivid dreams since taking this. Some are funny, some are frightening. They are so vivid that in the dream, they seem so real that even though I usually know when I’m dreaming, in these, I cannot.

This new series is going to be dedicated to the vivid dreams that I have as a result of this supplement. I’m going to tell these stories as they occurred in the dream.

I’m sitting on my couch watching TV when I hear a knock at the door. As usual, if I’m not expecting company, so I peek out the window to see who it might be. Two police officers.

Interesting… I turn off the TV and go to answer the door. When I opened it, each of the officers had their hands on their guns and asked my name.

Not knowing what was up, I confirmed it was me and one of officers pulled his gun, aimed it me, and the other grabbed my shoulder, flipped me around and slammed me against the wall.

“We know it was you, you’re coming with us”.

What the hell?! I had no clue what they were talking about. I have been home since yesterday and everyone in my house is alive. I, thinking it was just a mistake, didn’t resist and said “Um, ok, let’s go clear this up then. I didn’t do nuthin’!

I was cuffed and thrown in the back of the cop car. My neighbors are watching, shaking their heads.

I remember thinking how messed up this was… first I was being blamed for something I am pretty sure I didn’t do, and now my all neighbors are watching this going down, sure that I was guilty of whatever it was I may have done.

While in the cop car, I kept trying to ask details about why I was being taken in and finally got the answer that I was being blamed for murder.

The police didn’t take me to jail. They didn’t take me to court. They took me straight to a laboratory.

When they walked me in, they took me into a very sterile room that was loaded with concerning tools – it registered that this was a room for doctors to administer the death penalty. I start to panic.

“What is this?! You are blaming me for a murder and I don’t even get a lawyer, trial, nothing?! Fuck you, this isn’t right! I want my lawyer and I want to call my family so they know what’s going on! In fact, I don’t even know what’s going on! Why I am I here?!”

They proceeded to throw me on this metal table and strap me down. They told me there was hard evidence that showed me as the murderer of someone I didn’t even know. They told me because the evidence was inarguable they were immediately giving me the death penalty.

Strapped down, I could do nothing. I knew I was innocent and wrongfully accused. There was nothing I could do.

A doctor came in and started talking to me about what was going to happen. He explained he was going to administer a pill that would quickly and painlessly bring me to end of life.

I struggled to get loose. I couldn’t. I was strapped and unable to get out.

The doctor then forced my mouth open and stuck a black pill in the back of my mouth. The way he placed it, my body involuntarily forced me to swallow.

“Just look at the clock and within less than a minute, you will start to fall asleep. You shouldn’t feel a thing.”

I gave up. I looked at the clock. It was 11:57. As I was watching the second hand tick through the seconds, I felt my stomach lose all feeling. The deadness was starting to spread. My heart started racing.

It was time to make my peace with God.

“Lord, You are great and You are holy. Please…” I felt my heart starting to race super fast and then stop. This was it. I couldn’t register another thought, but knew I was going out.

Tunnel vision was kicking in, blackness closing in. I was dying. Still looking at the clock, the last thing I saw before everything went black was the minute-hand hitting 11:58. One minute. Doc was right.

I am dead. I remember thinking it couldn’t be a dream. People don’t actually die in their dreams. This is real…

A white dot. The white dot starts to grow. It spreads out like a light and I am overwhelmed with the white glow.

I think to myself, “Wow, this really is it. I have passed and I was right about the afterlife.”

I squint my eyes and look forward. There is an outline of a man standing at a podium. I walk towards him.

“Name please?” says the man, or what appeared to be a man at least. I gave him my name and he opens up a huge book. He starts scanning it for my name. “Ah ha, here you are. Let’s see here… mmhm… OK, go stand over there and wait for entrance.

“To Heaven right?” It always bugged me when people asked questions to which they already knew the answer to, but hey, I was just given a speedy no-trial-death-penalty for a murder I didn’t commit. I just wanted to make sure.

“After murder? And not even making your peace with God? Yeah…. No.”

Are you serious?! I was even marked up here for something I didn’t do? I even tried to make peace with God, but I was cut off by that stupid death pill… I really tried.

That was it. I didn’t even have time to argue my point. No trial in life, no trial in afterlife. Today, I was double screwed.

I felt the ground below me start to break apart and what seemed like a glow, yet absent of all light, started to rise up from under me. Instinctively, I knew what was happening.

Before I knew it, I was slammed down on hard ground. It was hot. I knew where I was. Dazed, I look around to check my surroundings.

I see a horribly disfigured character approaching someone in front of me. In a deep growling voice, it tells this guy his time was up. The guy screamed at him saying he didn’t get enough time.

As the disfigurement grabbed the guy by the arm and threw him across the cavernous room, I felt the ground below start to break apart again.

Yet, this time it was light emitting from below me. What was happening? I had no clue until I heard a voice saying “we now know the truth, you get another chance”.

I fall through this hole, for the second time today, and find myself back on earth. At work.

Um, you took me out of hell and back to work? Irony at its finest.

Well, here I was, alive again and back at work. While relieved, I still knew something wasn’t right.

I walked out of the office and ran into a guy that goes to my church. I told him my crazy experience I just went through.

“Did any of them follow you?” he asks.

“Uh, what?” Now I’m really confused, “I don’t know.”

He tells me what I went through has happened before and guides me to his office so he can show me something.

He picks up his phone and dials what seemed to be way too long to be a phone number. I look at his computer screen and it’s showing a thermal image of the property outside the office. What I saw on the screen looked oddly familiar to the demon I encountered moments ago.

My friend says, “You got lucky. Go rest and I’ll take care of this”.

I turn around, start walking back down the hall, and it was over.

That was the end of the dream. I woke up, deeply disturbed.