I have some pretty messed up nightmares sometimes, even though I’m a pretty logical, rational person, right? Well, I certainly like to think that I am anyways. It’s for this very reason that I’ve been sort of freaked out.

I don’t generally put any stock into dreams. In fact, to me, they’re really pretty meaningless. I know that some of you might, so sorry if that’s offensive to you, but to me, dreams are just dreams: no big deal.

But, I had this dream last night that awoke me in utter terror. Cold sweat, sweaty palms, heart racing, full-blown physiological anxiety response.

Here’s the dream: I’m sitting at my computer, and I go to this website. A blob in the middle starts to devour the words on the page, and then the browser, then the icons on my desktop, then my monitor itself, and it just keeps growing, devouring everything around it. It looks like it’s a series of jet black fingers, one after the other, just flowing into the void. The thing expands, and I’m just on the edge of it, trying to get away, but realizing the futility, I turn around to look at it. At this point, it’s just a mountain of fluid, black fingers. Something about what I’m seeing is familiar, but I can’t figure out what this thing is.

I awoke terrified, playing back the vision of the thing over and over again trying like mad to figure out what this thing was because I both know what it is and have no idea. Even while awake the thing is terrifying, playing vividly over and over again in my mind’s eye, to the point where I have to restrain myself from just screaming out in terror. I got up, got out of bed, and started working on some homework, but this thing just dominated my thoughts. I finished my homework, went back to bed, and eventually got back to sleep, literally jumping at every noise, wondering if it was that thing.

I got up in the morning (a whole two hours later), and I was still thinking about this thing. The physiological signs of anxiety were all still present. I finally got my mind off it, and went to school. On and off all day, I’ve started thinking about it, being able to see it clearly in my mind’s eye, and the anxiety starts up again.

What’s up with this?