By Elvin Yavuz on January 7, 2011

Feature photo by Eddie van W.

I was lying in my bed and all of a sudden the witch appeared right in front of me. She came to me that night like she did often wearing a long, medieval-looking gown that easily could have belonged to a character out of a Harry Potter book. The witch was an uninvited visitor I never wanted to see, but one I couldn’t just kick out of my apartment. She raised her arm and pointed at me like she normally did and, all of the sudden, my body was paralyzed. I tried to move but my limbs were under her control. I tried to scream but no voice came out.

“Great here we go again,” I thought to myself.

The witch didn’t say anything. She just watched me struggle under her control. I looked at her, trying to take back the control, but knowing that I never could. Before I knew it, I was awake, out of the nightmare and back into reality. I opened my eyes and looked around my room. My body was still paralyzed but I was able to regain movement a few seconds later.

I had been having the same reoccurring nightmare for about four months. Sometimes it was a witch and sometimes it was a warlock that had the control over me. A quick search on dream interpretation sites revealed that it was very normal to have supernatural dreams about someone taking control of your body when you were under a lot of stress. Apparently, it is also common to be paralyzed for a few seconds after coming out of the nightmare. Creepy.

For four months I kept my supernatural dreams to myself and secretly tried ways to break the cycle. I listened to some old school Enya to relax before bed, but that didn’t help much since some of her music is just as creepy as my witch dreams. I tried taking long hot showers before bed which helped me fall asleep quicker, but I was still visited by my supernatural friends in my nightmares. I tried massaging lavender oil into my wrists and my temples, but again, a total failure. The problem was not trying to fall asleep, the problem was trying NOT to see supernatural characters and nothing I was trying was helping.

After months of many sleepless nights, I had enough. I told a couple of girl friends about the nightmare to see if they had any advice, but besides thinking “it was so cool”, they had nothing for me. I then decided it was time to take this to the hands of a professional.

The nightmares made total sense to me. I was under an insane amount of stress with a new project at work and a few things I was dealing with in my personal life. I knew the nightmares’ cause, I just needed tools to be able to break the cycle so I figured a good therapist would be able to help do that.

I didn’t even know how to go about finding a therapist besides searching the Internet. I checked a couple of sites that had therapist databases and read through each of their profiles as if I was reading Match.com profiles. I wanted to call a good mix of people. I reached out to one woman who had 20 years of experience and had a PHD in Psychology, one guy who seemed more like a life coach, and one social worker named Karen who seemed like she was maybe a few years older than me. From her profile picture, Karen seemed like she would be friendly and I wouldn’t mind sitting in a room talking to her for an hour.

I called all three and left them messages. Karen was the only one who called me back and I made an appointment to see her the very next day.

I showed up at her office a little nervous. Her office was just a rented small room in an old building on Michigan Avenue. I thought the room would be more inviting and happy, but it was a bit depressing with old carpet and dark walls. I sat on the chair not knowing how to start.

Karen asked me why I was there to see her.

I explained my reoccurring nightmare. She listened without saying much and took notes. A lot of notes. Karen asked me questions in regards to the frequency, time and details of the nightmare. She asked about my diet and my personal life to see if there could be any triggers. I found myself telling her about my new work situation in detail and she said everything that was happening at work was directly related to the details of my nightmare. Duh, I could have told her that after my dream interpretation search on Google.

As I kept talking, Karen took diligent notes which annoyed the heck out of me. I didn’t want to just talk, I wanted answers and ways to stop the nightmares. Maybe it was unrealistic to expect so much from a first session. The only interesting thing that Karen did point out was after hearing about my school and work experiences (hello! Type A personality, over achiever, Ms. Perfection, uber confident-girl-who-thinks-she-is-going-to-take-over-the-world over here!), she pointed out that for the first time in my life, I seemed like I was in a situation that made me feel insecure. I didn’t think I had all the answers. I was intimidated by my team members and their experience. Since I had never really been insecure before, I was currently having a hard time dealing with that new element.
Okay…that statement alone was kind of a breakthrough in my mind.

I eagerly asked Karen how I could stop feeling that way and how I could stop the nightmares because, in my mind, the nightmares would only end if I started feeling more confident at work and started kicking some major ass.  Karen didn’t have much to say about this, and surprise, our time was up. She made me book the next appointment. I did, knowing that I would later cancel it.

A couple days after my session with Karen, my friend Nancy and I went out for pizza at Piece. I told her the details of my nightmares, what I was feeling in all aspects of my life, both at work and personal. She listened to me talk with the most kind eyes. I felt so much better just talking to her about it. Nancy had known me for almost ten years. She had seen the roller coasters of my life and had stood by me. As she was listening to me talk, she just kept reminding me how amazing and smart I was. That I had accomplished so much and that I would be able to figure out solutions to what I was facing at work. Nancy said there might not be a tangible solution to find, but I had to find ways to just accept that and just do my best.

I felt better after the talk with Nancy than I did after seeing a therapist. All of a sudden I just felt relieved that someone I was close to knew about my struggles, and all of a sudden I just didn’t feel so alone and helpless.

After that talk, the nightmares just stopped.  Sometimes, we just need a good friend to sit, listen, offer their support and remind us that we are awesome. Time to time, we all get our egos bruised and sometimes a good friend can heal it up over some good pizza and beer!