Yeah, I did. So there was probably an audio stimulus there. Sort of drifting in and out of my sleep, in a way.

So it's basically my shadow side not being fully integrated, I guess. It seemed to be a mixture of the original and the remake Michael Myers, all things considered, but the Loomis in this dream was very much the original Dr. Loomis. (He's a character I have mixed feelings about. He is a great, heroic character, and Donald Pleasence did an amazing job, but I wouldn't really trust him as my kid's therapist, mostly because...maybe it is just me, but I'm wondering if he really tried in terms of trying to help Michael Myers when he was a kid. And I just remember his treatment of Jamie Lloyd in Halloween 5, as well as his overall behavior in Halloween 5, was pretty unsettling, if also fascinating. It was sort of how-far-do-you-have-to-go-in-terms-of-good-intentions-before-you-go-too-far) I remember the original Michael Myers being more like...well, your expected Hollywood creepy kid, and the remake version was more of the troubled-kid-from-a-broken-home thing. So maybe it's a bit of an attempt for myself to be more compassionate to my kid self, as well as my 2013 self who was going through all these issues. A bit of examining who I am and what I want in my writing because I don't think I could ever write the just-plain-evil villain (even though I do love the Halloween movies.

I guess it ties back to some of my guilt in that flash, because the strange thing I got from it was "why didn't I realize something was wrong, why didn't I fight, why didn't I run away" even though honestly...I was a kid. And it's making me wonder if it was actually from when I was eighteen months because I didn't learn about



until I was older; I couldn't have had the words for it at eighteen months. I might have been a teenager when I started really learning about it and usually they focused on dads as the perpetrators. In those old Chicken Soup for the Soul books, nobody really focused on women as perpetrators. So I must have jumbled different memories together. (Weird, but it happens) But I can't think of anyone else who could have done it.

In terms of things I have to feel guilty for...well, I said something offensive as a kid without really realizing its connotations (several, actually. Maybe that's normal for kids, but I did read a lot when I was a kid. I should have known better), saying some awful things to my father when I was probably nine years old, going too far in protecting my brother from a bully (because I really do love my brother. When he was first born, I was a toddler at the time, and resentful of him, but accepted him after a long while. There's even a bit in my journal from elementary school -- one of them -- calling him "the sweetest boy in the school". And he was, honestly -- he was a sweet kid. Still is, actually), and I guess that's all I can recall. There's probably more. And maybe I should just brush them off as kids' mistakes and move on, but I guess sometimes I don't feel like the sweet kid that Mom and likely others remember me as. Like most of my sweeter moments are just in journals and videos and I can't recall them for myself. (Maybe that lends another layer, I suppose, to the whole five-year-old-self-getting-hurt dream. I either had some issues at age five, or did some stuff at five that I realize wasn't okay. I mostly have bits and pieces from age five, though...most of my most concrete memories start at age six, and that was because my first grade teacher kind of got in my face and yelled at me -- she might have clapped a hand on my shoulder too. I mostly remember that because of how scared and guilty I felt at the time -- because I grabbed my coat during a fire drill when I wasn't supposed to. She wasn't all bad; I do remember instances when she and I actually had some correspondence and such and she could be kind and encouraging, but she was also really strict. Mom told me that she was one of those teachers who didn't know how to deal with my learning issues and by and large, the school system didn't know how to deal with it either, or any other kids with learning issues or other problems. And from what I can gather from a friend of mine's mother, it's a recurring theme with public school I guess) And I think first grade and fifth grade were where the whole "bad, evil child" thing kind of became an issue, but I think there might have been traces of it in third grade as well, mostly because of my attention issues (before my third grade teacher became a bit of an ally. We did some correspondence through an old journal I had and it seems even then I had a bit of a thing for saving people because my first entry was ranting about some sort of bully who was causing people problems). And I think that I also felt really, really alone at times, helpless, not really strong like the heroines of the books I read -- I'd be on the swing and fantasize about what would lie beyond the school, what kind of adventure was out there. (I'm in college now and that adventure hasn't come yet) I'd escape into books a lot -- I remember in middle school when things got too much I'd escape to the upper level of the school (my class was on a lower level, all on one floor, and on the upper level was a library and such) and pull out a copy of one of the Babysitters Club books (I know, give me a break. ) and make up my own stories involving that. And in elementary school, I remember going over to shelves during class and picking up books to read; Mom says I got in trouble for reading during math as some strange act of rebellion.

I guess Michael could represent my shadow side, and how I feel about who I am now, and how I felt about myself as a kid. Loomis can represent everyone who kind of misunderstood me or let me down, and my anger because at the time that I discovered the Halloween franchise, I was angry, and I needed sort of a way to stuff that anger down (I'm now in a situation where I can't afford to do that because it might actually kill me).

I think so. I can't really recall what the kidnapper looked like, although he might have actually been overlapping with one section of the Halloween 2007 remake and Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton's version) was being attacked by Michael Myers on the way home from school. (It's not because I've seen the movie; I only saw the 2009 sequel. And Compton!Laurie looked more like she did in the 2007 version, curly hair and all) And Nancy Holbrook, I think, from the Elm Street remake was the mother trying to rescue her child. So it could be my fears of what happens when those different parts of myself assimilate -- my shadow's trying to kill another part of my shadow, the one who had nightmares and things like that (I never went through what Laurie did, thank God, but I've definitely had nightmares, feelings of not being strong enough, a lot of anger, things like that). And Nancy -- I really did identify with this Nancy when I was younger (15-16) because she was a lot like me. Quiet, shy, things like that. I don't know what the kidnapper looked like, but I think he was based on Charlie Manx from NOS4A2 who...well, basically, the guy's a creeper who brings kids to a place called Christmasland where they can stay kids forever. (Make of that what you will) And yeah, the cannibalism could be the negative portrayal of self-assimilation, especially since there were times when I described my mind as eating itself when I first had my breakdown. Now looking at it, I think some of my previous issues were crying out for help, and that was why I had my breakdown. (I guess what makes it really devastating was that prior to that, I was in a good place. I wasn't perfect, but I was in a good place)

Considering that the intruder looked like Colm Feore in Storm of the Century, I think that you are right. I am worried that people are just going to call me crazy, a liar, a stupid little girl, things like that. And I'm also worried about what I'm going to find as I dig deeper into things, so there is that. Especially since one theme in Storm of the Century was the villain pointing out the townspeople's various sins, and in the end, manipulating them into doing the absolutely unthinkable. Plus his opening scene where he kills a woman? It's sort of a representation of ugly truths and searching for the answers and trying to assimilate myself kind of banging on my door, asking to be let in (I've also compared my bad thoughts to the vampire at the window in Salem's Lot,, so I guess it could also be a metaphor that I can't really shut things out forever). So it's kind of the whole self-assimilation process. And how scary it really is. I'm scared of changing, I'm scared of finding out the truth, and I kind of feel like my world is being yanked out from under. I guess life has a talent for doing that, but it doesn't make it hurt any less. Best I can do is try and fortify myself for what comes. The good news is that the more analyzing I do, the more of my memories return -- some good, some bad. In terms of bad memories...it's just weird that even though the initial flash had nothing to do with school, a lot of my issues seem to have had something to do with school and my learning disabilities and such.

So yeah, it definitely could be my still-resolving issues, as well as listening to the Stephen King Cast. I might have to try another tactic -- and try and get myself to bed while reading. Also, very interesting thing about Freud -- seriously!