I haven’t read The Road and I’m not going to and — looking at the trailer — I’m not going to see the movie either. It scares the hell out of me.
I’ve always had apocalyptic dreams although they went up a notch in my teens. The sky is gray, the world is empty and there’s the heavy buzz of something looming. (My favorite line from Watership Down when I was in sixth grade was Fiver saying that there was something bad coming — “Something ominous like thunder.”)
When I was younger (like in kindergarten), I saw the end coming in tanks grinding down our suburban streets. I’m sure that was from spending too much time looking at the photographs in my dad’s collection of Time/Life World War II books. Then as I got older it was me on a bike and the chain clung-clung-clunging as I pushed my way up a hill. (It was a recurring theme in the melancholy poetry I wrote then.)
The Road? It’s like they were spying on my nightmares all those years only this time they’re bringing my kids into my bad dreams.
So yeah, I’m skipping that one.
I don’t know how writers write about bad things happening to children if they have children. Maybe it’s a way of exorcising those fears? But me, I’m superstitious the other way. If I wrote it, what if I made it happen? I can’t sit with those fears too long. Real life is scary enough, thanks.
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I don’t know anyone else who has recurring apocalypse dreams. Mine are so much like yours. Wow!
I’m with you – I didn’t read the book and I won’t see the movie. Not a chance! I’ve got enough nightmares roiling around in my brain without adding ready-made images and fears.
Yeah, I’m right there with you. There is no way in HELL that I am feeding my nightmares with the imagery from that book/movie.
i like when you write posts like these, dawn. i might be an enfp but i’m a very borderline extrovert who has some things in common with the infp, and the goings-on in your mind and your psyche are very interesting (and somehow comforting) for me to get a glimpse into. like i’m not crazy for all the so-called overthinking and reacting-to-things that i experience.. .
I thought it was a great book – yes it was sad but I couldn’t put it down. I liked the father’s ingenuity. But I don’t know if I want to see it on the big screen.
The author said he was inspired by watching Las Vegas wildfires with his son. I actually looked the plot up on Wikipedia to make sure there was hope at the end. But I read Jody’s post on it when the book came out, so I don’t think I can read it. But I feel like a wimp, which is mean of me to myself.
I have apocalyptic dreams also. I had one where we all lived in falling down high rise apartments and raised dogs for food. It makes a certain amount of practical sense, dogs are small and can be potty trained. But…ugh.
would be pretty hard to kill the dogs, though, when they look up at you with their big loving eyes!
i used to have apocalyptic dreams, too, but i forgot about them until i thoght of falling down apartments, strangely. mine always involved scary bombs being seen falling from the sky from a far distance, causing worry and fear about the saftey of our current location.. .
Yes, but that’s part of the horror, that westerners have gotten so hungry that they’re eating dogs. And it’s still better than The Road, where they’re eating people.
most of us westeners compared to much of the developping world, we don’t know hunger that much. i like (is it strange to say that ? well, i’m safely dissociated in hearing your nightmare — i’m not the one having it!) i like the imagery of a crumbling urban centre and your image of crumbling highrises — very atmospheric, would make for a good movie.
.. still would never, ever see a film like The Road, though. your nightmare might make for a good movie, but i’d still choose the latest disney flick or issue-filled drama over ones that would only feed my neurotic tendancy to worry too much!!
Weird, I had dreams like this too. Esp. weird as we are close to the same age.
But I was always in bleachers as if at a football game, and turning to a good friend of mine and saying, “figures”
Dawn, thank you for stopping by and commenting – I really, really appreciate it. I hope you and yours have a terrific Thanksgiving!!!
I’m so amazed others have dreams like this. I’ve been talking about mine for years and had never run into others who had similar ones. Like yours, mine were a strange mix of the domestic and apocalyptic. I’d look out my bedroom window and see the hills swarming with soldiers; I’d know the bombs were coming and I’d be running from house to house trying to round up all the neighborhood children so that maybe somehow we’d have a chance at safety.
There was a subgenre of YA books in the ’80s about groups of children surviving nuclear destruction and I was excessively obsessed with them. The best is Robert Swindells’ Brother in the Land but I read so many more. The dreams way predated this and I think the books were my way to deal with the dreams. Since reaching adulthood, my stress dreams are all about having to protect children. Those aren’t as rote or as creepy as the apocalyptic ones.