Before I tell you of this dream it is worth noting that in my bedroom back home I have two Freddy Krueger figures; one is 4-inch high with articulated limbs, the other is a 12-inch high figure with fully articulated limbs, a removable hat and a motion sensor that causes it to speak as you walk past. For some reason though, I only ever have nightmares about the 4-inch figure, at an alarmingly regular interval of late.
I was working on a university project in my girlfriend's room. Presently I finished it and took it up the corridor to my course mate. (quite bizarrely, as he lives miles away) That done, I went back into my girlfriend's room only to walk through the door and be in my bedroom in a house my family haven't lived in for nearly a year. There, on the window sill, stood my four-inch high Freddy Krueger figure, its arms above its head, looking straigh forward. Just how I left him.
The memory of me meaning to be in my girlfriend's room was a distant one, and I began making my bed for a good night's sleep. My parents walked past the door and I wished them good night. In the failing twighlight I saw in the corner of my eye that the Freddy Krueger figure was now looking over his left shoulder, towards me, his mouth wide in contempt. I looked round fully, and there he was, arms above his head, looking straight forward. Mouth twisted in his factory-made sneer. Just how I left him.
Just a little weary from them strange dreams about that Freddy Krueger figure I'd been having recently, I detached the bodies of both of my figures from their legs, and settled into bed. After lying there with my eyes screwed up tight for a few minutes, I looked across at my window sill. There, in all his glory, stood the Freddy Krueger figure, his body re-attached to his legs, looking mockingly towards me. Jumping out of bed to grab the figure, I find that he is back with his legs and body seperated. Just how I left him.
I turn round and see the 12-inch high figure with his body re-attached, wearing my brother's shoes. He lifts his arm up towards me and at that sudden moment the failing light outside dies altogether, plunging the room into blackness. I run for the door. Stopping at the door, I try and turn the light on to see what carnage is about to take place. The light doesn't work. I run to my parent's room to alert them.
Surprisingly the opening mechanism of the door to my parent's room operates correctly and I waste no time in going in and waking my mother. Unforuntately at this point I suffer from that well-known dream affliction in which I am unable to get any sound out of my throat. I eventually manage to get something out:
"Mum! It's the Freddy dolls! They keep coming alive! I snap them in half but then bam!" (I clap my hands for emphasis) "they keep coming back!"
Somehow we agree that we must leave. (my mother doesn't say a single word and my stepdad doesn't even seem to stir) As I pull open the door to my parent's bedroom, I find the real Freddy Krueger looming over me, his razor glove poised.
I jolt awake in bed back in my flat at 5am today and don't go back to sleep for hours.
This is just the latest in a long line of nightmares I've had about Freddy Krueger. They usually follow the same formula that he will be silently and mockingly stalking me, staking me out for nearly the entire dream, and will then pounce on me, causing me to abruptly awaken. And then I actually feel afraid to go back to sleep for up to two or three hours afterwards, a feeling that is much elevated by the fact that at the house my parents currently live in the Freddy doll lives on the window sill right next to my bed, so it is the first thing I see on regaining conciousness.
I am a grown man, I know that really, he is just Robert Englund in a bad costume, but as Catchpole said in his/her node about Freddy Krueger:
" ...and next time go to sleep, better try not to think about Freddy, because although he is a fictional character, in your dreams he is about a distinct an image that you can get."
The nightmares about him that have been plaguing me lately have been about the most scary I've had in my lifetime, and no, I've not woken up with shredded bed clothes/flesh. Although once I did dream that I was shaving with a blunt razor and woke up with scratch marks on my face....