#518 Scary Dream

I had this dream about 10 days ago. For some reason I didn't write it down then, but also for some reason I told Roman about it the last time I saw him, the morning after I had the dream. It's still bothering me. It's one of those where I woke up panting and shaking, and very frightened.

The house in the dream was not this house, but the previous house, the one my daughter grew up in, except that the living room wall next to the door wasn't there. It was late evening in the dream, and someone was ringing the doorbell over and over, like it was an emergency or something. I went to the door, and asked through the door who was there. As was often my habit in that house, the door was not locked. A man answered in a very excited and pleading voice, but what he was saying was in some eastern European-sounding language that I couldn't understand, except that every so often he said something that sounded like my name, but distorted by a heavy accent.

As I stood there trying to understand what he was saying, he became more excited and louder, less pleading and more angry, and I felt the doorknob slowly turning. He was opening the door! I caught a glimpse of him then. He was very thin and disheveled, even dirty. I tried to push the door closed and throw the deadbolt, but the door was ... weird. It swung both ways, and there was a wide space between the door and the frame. When I tried to push the door closed I pushed too far to his side, and he stuck his fingers over the deadbolt so it wouldn't engage. We struggled back and forth over the door, and I started screaming for Daughter to call 911. I finally managed to beat his fingers away from the deadbolt and got the door closed and locked, and then I ran down the hall still screaming for Daughter to call 911.

The man started down the front of the house. He was trying the windows. The house had double-hung windows, and as I ran toward my Daughter's room, I was thinking that all the windows were latched, except ...! In real life, in the end front bedroom, which was Daughter's room when we lived there, the side window didn't fit right, and it wouldn't latch. In real life, I had pegged it. But in the dream, it was unpegged, and when he got to that window, he would be able to open it. Also, in the dream, the back bedroom was my daughter's, and the front bedroom with the unlocked window was mine.

So I ran into Daughter's room screaming "Get your phone! Where's your phone! Call 911! Now!", and she was sitting up in her bed, rubbing her eyes, still half asleep, saying "Wha...?" (She looked maybe about 12 years old.) I knew she was wasn't going to be any help, she probably couldn't even find her phone, so I ran to my bedroom, and the man was at the unlatched window, and was about to open it

when I woke up in a panic.

I couldn't get back to sleep. I checked the bed phone to make sure it was working. I hefted and tested the flashlight. I went around and checked all the door locks. Several times. I even checked the deadbolt on the garage door. I suddenly felt very alone and vulnerable. I was really frightened.

I haven't the faintest idea what it means. Yet.

If I can't have a man, I want a dog. For the first time ever, I was afraid here. I don't like that feeling.