Last night I had what might pass for a nightmare.  These days my nightmares usually deal with real world concerns, such as money, health, or being stuck in an elevator with people who insist on talking politics.  Supernatural or other scary movie type scenarios are not the stuff of which my dreams are made.  Which is why last night’s dream was so out of character for me.

It started with me being in my twenties.  No, that’s not the nightmare part.  I was going with a group of my young friends to goof off in an abandoned hospital that used to house criminally insane patients.  There was a jock, a tech nerd, two hot girls, and me.  (If you’re a fan of 1980s slasher flicks, you should have a good sense of where this is headed.)  After we arrived at the derelict hospital, the jock told me there was a morgue on the premises with an interesting history.  It used to be that when a patient died on site the body was kept in a huge freezer until the family or state made burial arrangements.  But when the state decided to close the hospital the bodies that were left in the freezer were just abandoned there.  Rumor had it  that one of the country’s most notorious serial killers was one of those bodies left behind.  Jock guy had a super cool idea!  What if tech nerd could hack the electronic lock on the freezer?  Then we could sneak in there and get our pictures taken with the body of a famous serial killer!  Wouldn’t that be rad?

Of course, these things came to pass.  We were in the meat locker preparing to get our rad picture when suddenly the body came back to life!  The serial killer had once been part of a secret medical experiment back when the hospital was open.  Even though the experiment killed him, a lucky side effect included the ability to reanimate if ever stupid young people try to take a picture with you.  I was knocked unconscious in the ensuing fracas.  When I woke up, I was lying in the corner of a room with the remains of my friends nearby.  The killer had found a board with a nail in it and used it to vivisection all of them.  No great loss, really.  Some were disemboweled, some simply chopped up.  Impressive work for a man with only a board and a nail.  This guy was good.

He must have gone to take a pee break before starting on me.  I used that opportunity to escape!  How smart was I, huh?  I was running  away with the killer behind me in hot pursuit.  He had stolen a jeep and found a crazy minion to drive for him while he took shots at me with a high caliber assault rifle.  I hid in a field of razed houses, and rooted around in the debris for a weapon.  Lo and behold, I managed to find a chaingun!  I waited until the killer had to reload, then I jumped out and opened fire.  When he came back around for me, I did quick side rolls back and forth to avoid the bullets.  It went on like this for a while until his health meter was nearly depleted.  I might have leveled up a couple of times.  I can’t remember for sure.  Eventually, the cops showed up and the killer ran away with me in hot pursuit this time.

This was definitely not the same kind of nightmare I had as a kid.  Back then I was vulnerable and afraid.  I spent the dream running and hiding.  Now, man, I’m like a Dream Warrior from Nightmare On Elm Street Part III.  I kick some serious ass!  I believe this beautiful, nocturnal, butterfly-like metamorphosis is the direct result of playing tons of video games, and holding close to my heart a deep, burning resentment for all living things.

You can see why it was tough calling it a nightmare.  What’s the opposite of a nightmare?

I swear to God, the first person who answers “Daymare” is getting a board with a nail right in the fucking teeth.