All seemed quiet.
I lay here, caught between sleep and wake.
Faint footsteps of an unknown stranger
Can be heard walking around me.

My eyes are too heavy to open them all the way.
Something not of this natural world
Has prevented me from doing so.
I cannot determine if it’s good or evil
As I lay on my back.

If it can even be called someone,
This someone has painted me
To the canvas called my bed.
Through slits in my eyes,
I can see both my bedroom and, at the same time,
My dream room, wherever in nothing where that could be.

Suddenly, my head begins to rise—
Then my neck and shoulders.
A sensational feeling,
As if my soul is slowly being peeled
Headfirst from my lifeless body.

My arms are now floating above,
Hovering with a rhythm,
As if they were ripples in a lake.
Don’t ask how I can see all of this;
It’s unexplainable.
In dreams, anything is possible?

I am staring at my natural body beneath me.
The feeling is ecstatic, surreal.
My thighs have been peeled up and above me now.
At this moment, all that’s left is my feet,
And soon I’ll be spiritually free from this prison.

The crazy thing is,
I needed to be taken away by this mysterious force.
I wanted to be caught up to the heavenly windows,
Walk through that unnatural door.

I close my eyes tight and let my mind go,
Submitting my body
To this force of the unknown.
Transformation is almost complete.

Then suddenly, without any warning,
Strange hands grabbed hold of my ankles.
This feeling, the force, the grip—
Was horrifying, forbidden.
Plunging my soul back into reality.

It seemed these hands did not want me to leave.
Why?
The spell was lifted. I opened my eyes.

To this day, I still try to make sense of this dream.
Were those hands the hands of something good or something evil?
Were those the hands of an angel or demon?
Maybe those hands were trying to protect me,
Or maybe those hands were the hands of something beyond sinister.
I will never know.

Poem by Nelly Vee

Based on true events.
(Continues in the book, ‘Dark Haze‘)