Fear Factor

It may sound very funny, but it is not. I used to think that fear was a natural feeling, an emotion that comes as a package with every human being. If God thought it fit to put fear in us, then who are we to complain? 

We all have fear for the unknown, the unseen and the un-understood. I too have fears like fear for darkness, fear for ghosts and apparitions, and yes, I consider myself God-fearing too! But when you are constantly haunted by fear, that is when it becomes abnormal. I know a friend of mine who constantly worries that he has some serious disease and keeps visiting doctors and clinics. Even doctors cannot reassure him that he is fit and healthy. Again, there is this person who constantly fears death, even though he knows well that all that is born has to die someday or the other.

Amongst my many fears, one haunts me and this is the one I want to share with you today. It is a dream actually that has been a constant in my life. This dream, when it occurs, leaves me completely anxious and fearful. 

My dream has several variations but a single theme. It always happens that I am traveling somewhere; sometimes on a train, a bus, a car, a plane or even a ship. Sometimes, I dream that I am myself flying without wings to my secret destination! I do not know where I am going but it is always for a very urgent and pressing reason. 

During these journeys, it so happens that I suddenly face a situation when there is some problem with the conveyance. The train, if it is a train I have taken in my dream, stops at some station where I get down to fetch something. Suddenly, without warning, the train starts moving and leave me behind. I find the station empty and with only me on the solitary platform. I cannot see any town or village or people anywhere near the station and I begin to wonder whether I will be able to reach my destination, for there is an urgent job to be done there. I feel fearful, anxious and depressed that I got stranded here. The dream ends with me worrying on the platform.

If it is a bus, then the bus has to meet with an accident at some strange place and I am the lone survivor. I have no means to communicate, nor can I find anyone who can help me.

I would not have worried about these dreams if they were isolated instances. But, as I said before, this theme of my getting stranded and unable to reach my destination is a constantly occurring theme in my dreams. My own emotions during these dreams are filled with dread and absolute helplessness.

I researched a bit about the dreams and found out that one possible meaning could be that I was wanting, in my real life, to achieve or do too many things and very often most of the things I initiate do not get completed. This results in anxiety and hopelessness and fear of non-achievement which then reflects in my dreams.

Well, whatever the truth is, my worst fear manifests in the dreams which I have described above.