Last night, I struggled to fall back asleep after another instance of awake-but-dreaming. I cannot recall the actual dream, but when I woke and looked over at my boyfriend, there was a massive, twig-like spider on his head and I panicked. This beastie was about the size of my hand (which is a scary size for a spider) and it looked posed to attack, with both its two front legs up. I jumped out of bed (no small feat, as our bed is very tall and we have been lazy lately in picking up our clothes from the floor) and grabbed my phone to use the light and find the sucker. My brain was not on "what do I do when I find it" but more on "I need to find it before it bites him." I used the phone's glow rather than the flashlight because I did not want to wake him; he is still recovering from COVID. After five minutes of searching, I came up empty and reluctantly crawled back into bed. Then it dawned on me that I could not have seen that spider creature because we keep our room very dark; I can barely see the bed without a light. The vision I saw showed the creature gently lit by a bluish light, not existent in the room; the spider was a lingering aftermath of my dream.
However, that did not stop my brain from trying to tell me it was real and thereby, I could not fall back asleep for fear of feeling it crawl on my face or over my hands.
This is not the first time I have experienced these waking dreams, and it will not be the last. I can partially blame my dream on watching this YouTube video the other day: Rachel Maksy - I Tried Following a Christine McConnell Tutorial (spider cookies!). If you are not familiar with Rachel, she is a rockstar entertainer. Go subscribe.
