Last night I dreamed I was dying

I've been having these disturbing dreams lately, about 6 of them so far. The specific circumstances are different, but they all revolve around the same theme. She's determined to kill herself, and she finds a way to ensure I can't stop her. In an earlier post I mentioned one about driving off a bridge... in another, she has me arrested for abuse, and as the cops are dragging me away, she's standing in the door, smiling at me, because she knows she's won. In each one, she's smiling or laughing as I realize what she's about to do, and that I can't stop her. That's the part that lingers: the glee in her eyes when she knows she's finally going to succeedd in killing herself. Each time I jolt awake, my heart pounding, short of breath, sometime even sweating. Doesn't take Freud to figure out what these are all about, does it?

But this most recent one troubled me even more. In it, I had caught her in the act of trying to O.D. and had grabbed the pills away from her. Instead of putting them away, I guess I decided in that weird dream-logic way that she'd only be safe if I took them...literally. I swallowed all the pills she had, thinking this would be the only way to keep them away from her. I went back into the room she was in and just told her I had gotten rid of them. In the dream, I started to feel the effects of the drugs. Light-headed, then sleepy. It was actually kinda nice. I laid on the floor, and felt myself drifting away. She was there, but didn't realize what was happening, just thought I was going to sleep. I drifted further and further away, and suddenly realized that this wasn't something I was going to come back from. I was really dying. I started to panic, then tried to fight it off. Her voice was getting fainter, and inside my head I heard myself screaming for help. I felt cold, and started to shiver. I kept thinking to myself, "She doesn't know. How can I make her understand. She needs to do something! She can't just let me lay here and die." And I kept thinking it was so cold...so cold. I was panicked, but couldn't do anything about it, couldn't drag myself away from death. I slipped further and further, and started crying. What an idiot! What was I thinking? My thoughts raced in a circle of shame for what I had done, panic that I couldn't stop it, pity for what she'd go through when she realized the truth, horror at the thought of actually dying, and over and over I kept thinking "I'm so cold. Why does dying have to be so cold?" I felt myself take what felt like my last breath....and finally jolted awake.

The air conditioner was on, and the ceiling fan was blowing cold air straight down on us. It wasn't just in my dream...I really *was* cold. But instead of being relieved that it was just a dream, I was even more scared of the intense feeling the dream left me with, and that the cold was reminding me of. The desolation, the loneliness, the hopelessness... I couldn't shake the lingering feelings, even laying there an hour later. I finally got up and walked around the dark house for a while, checked on the dogs, got a drink. Eventually I got tired enough that went back to bed and managed to fall asleep. But even today, the feelings of dread are still with me. I hope I can shake them soon...