Nightmares

When I was a kid, I loved monster movies.

Anytime a movie like "The Blob", or "The Mummy", or "Dracula" was on network television I made it my business to watch.

As a result, my nightmares were sometimes filled with slow moving, life draining monsters. One might think that I would have had the advantage of an easy escape with a slow moving monster in pursuit; but noooo, because I was usually frozen in fear, slow moving monsters merely prolonged my terror.

The monsters of this century don't lumber about like the monsters of old. They strike quickly, as if by the speed of light. They leave little time for a victim to stand frozen in fear as they contemplate either escape or demise. By all appearances, modern day monsters have no time to waste and when they attack, they gut human life in one adrenaline pumping flash.

I am struck by how different the nightmares of this generation must be compared to those of my generation. People my age, well, we had time in our nightmares. Time to plan, time to escape, time to suffer. How does this younger generation dream? Are their nightmares filled with gore-splattered monsters and hapless victims who breathe their last breaths absent the time to think, or to defend, or to pray?

What effect must this have upon the human psyche, the human soul?

It all seems so horrifying to me; but then again, maybe I have it all backwards. Maybe it is better to dream the quick death of surprise, than to dream of staring one's own death in the eye?

Me? (Ignore my spontaneous shiver of terror.) I much prefer my nightmares of slow moving, geriatric monsters.