Why do dreams repeat themselves?

[strangebirdie]

I keep having this recurring dream. It always starts at the entrance of a library, only the library is inside a mall, tucked into the corner of it.

I have had this dream for as long as I can remember. It is a little different each time, but the way it starts is the same. Always the library, and a spiral staircase that sits, unattached, to the side of it. Scuffed black and white checkered tile, rows of books I cannot read because if I could then I would be awake, old paper-smell, and a feeling of familiarity that creeps up on me.

I never realize I am dreaming until I wake up. But I always have the sense that I have been there before, and my feet carry me to where I need to go, as if by muscle memory.

'Where I need to go' always happens to be another dream. Never the same one. Always something different, and always something terrible. It is like the Magic Treehouse, only this time I am transported to another dream not through the books but by walking into the aisles themselves.

Never the same, but almost always terrible.

I don't remember all of them, but the ones I do remember leave me waking up with nausea coiling in my stomach. Sometimes when my eyes open, all I can do is lie still with my heart beating fast until I can convince myself that I have finally woken up.

Not all my nightmares start like this, but the worst ones usually do.

Maybe I'll write about them someday. Cram all my horrors into a book so I know I'm not crazy for being afraid of them.

Or maybe I'll just journal about it.

Excuse me. I have to be getting to bed now. It is late.

Wouldn't want to have any nightmares, after all.