When I was a child, about eight years old, I used to have nightmares. I was in a maze of high hedges (all black and white – no colour), frantically looking for my mother. She would appear at the end of each passage calling my name: Karin, Karin, Karin! Loud at first and then softer and softer until I couldn’t hear her anymore. I would run and run and run, nauseated with a hypnotic spiral feeling in my mind. By the time I got to the end of the passage, she was gone. She would appear again at the end of the next passage.
When I was older, very much awake, I would have the same occurrence, the nauseated feeling, and the hypnotic spiral twisting in my mind. I know why I had those nightmares back then. My father had wanted to put my sister and me in a boarding school. I didn’t want to go and was scared of losing my mother. Even at an older age, whenever I felt that my mother and I would be separated, I would have the recurring feeling – wide awake, though. I never dreamed of a maze again, but I remain fascinated to this day with labyrinths. Guess who loves Alice in Wonderland and The Maze Runner?
Many years later, as an adult, I had different nightmares. Whenever my mind was troubled, I would dream of dark water masses. Again, I know why I dreamed of water. When I was 18, going on 19, I nearly drowned at Umdloti beach in KwaZulu-Natal. On the north side of Umdloti, there is a large natural rock formation that creates a tidal pool. It would seem the perfect swimming area, providing shelter from onshore currents. In effect, it’s a very dangerous place. My friend and I went for a swim one morning. We didn’t know about the rip current, which had no mercy for us and pulled us deeper into the sea. It was so strong! Within seconds, we were trapped in troughs behind walls of waves that kept breaking towards the beach. This experience not only initiated my fear for masses of water but also my fear of heights and claustrophobia. My friend, Charon, convinced me to try and swim against the tide. It was a useless enterprise.
Charon kept telling me to kick like crazy whilst swimming. I was so tired at one point that I stopped swimming. She came back for me and motivated me to carry on. We swam again for a while, but I was done! Charon then linked arms. She told me that we needed to swim through the wave. Instead of going up with the wave to the crest and being pushed back into a new trough when it plunged towards the beach, we would go halfway up and then swim through it. She counted to three and we went through the wave. We tumbled out of the sea, head over heels, onto the beach. My wise friend, Charon, then decided that we needed therapy. I was reluctant, at first, but followed her on jelly legs to the pool and we stayed in the water until ‘we’ felt better. Her therapy apparently worked for her – I spoke to her more recently and she couldn’t remember the incident. As for me, I still fear water masses at night. I also dream of dark water when I have a troubled mind. This happens very seldom, but the fact that it does honestly tells me that the pool therapy didn’t work for me.
Dreams don’t occur much in my life, nightmares more seldom. Perhaps my brain is too tired to dream. Perhaps it’s too academically wired because I work all the time. I cannot imagine that this is good for me, but it’s what I do. I work, work, work. I suppose I'm too tired to dream about unprocessed information. Then again, what do I know? I’m not a neuroscientist.
More recently, I dreamed that I was on my way to … well, somewhere. As I came out of a double-story apartment, one I cannot remember ever seeing in my life, I looked up and saw three tornadoes behind the mountain. I ran to my car thinking that I needed to find my children. As I ran around the building, I saw another three tornadoes on the other side of the building behind another mountain. Potgietersrus is settled between two mountain ranges. So, the mountains make sense. As I looked back in horror at the first three tornadoes and again at the three in front of me, the tornado in the middle lifted into the air and made three prong-like fingers (like a fork) before sinking down again behind the mountain. My greatest concern was for the safety of my children.
I woke up and remembered the dream quite vividly.
Not long thereafter, I dreamed of three tornadoes again. This time, I was at school on the sports field. I saw the three tornadoes in the exact position as the previous nightmare, behind the mountain. I started running towards the school. I ran towards a huge tree, like a strong Oaktree. As I passed it, I saw another three tornadoes behind another mountain. It was exactly the same as my first dream. The only difference was that in my first dream there was no wind. The sun was shining and the sky was clear. In my second dream, I was running against a strong wind towards my car. The sky was filled with sinister-looking clouds. While I was running, my son came running from out of nowhere and we ran together. I shouted above the sound of the wind that we needed to find my daughter.
When I woke up, I remembered the dream vividly. I remembered the first dream, too. I even compared the dreams.
A few nights later, I had another dream about a tornado. It was night time and there were people outside in the garden, socializing. I walked out of my house and saw a huge purple and pink hourglass spinning in the air. It wasn’t big. It hovered above the trees, slowly spinning in the air. My mother came outside, was horrified when she saw it, and said it was a tornado. She ran inside the house and I was left standing, confused, on the patio. It didn’t look like a tornado at all and the people, somewhere in the dark garden, didn’t seem to be aware of it. They were talking and laughing as if nothing was wrong.
At the end of August, a few days after my first nightmare, Bennette Riekert died in a road accident. The truck he was travelling in had veered off the road and rolled. When I heard about his death, I remembered the tornadoes in my dream. I couldn’t stop thinking about the tornadoes, which obviously led to the second nightmare of tornadoes. A month after Bennette’s death, Louis Ruytenberg died in a road accident. His vehicle rolled just outside of town and he was thrown from the vehicle. Again, when I heard about the accident, I thought about the tornadoes.
Both Bennette and Louis attended the school where I teach. They were in my English classes from 2012 to 2015. They were in the same class as my son and sat alphabetically from 2013 onwards: Riekert, Ruytenberg, and Steyn. I feel compelled to say that I don’t believe in analyzing dreams, accidents happen, but this was a strange experience. I dreamed of the tornadoes long before each accident occurred.
Now, all I can do is think about the tornadoes. All three dreams are very lucid in my mind and for the next few weeks, or months, until I’ve ‘reprogrammed’ my brain, this will be my small obsession!
I wrote a poem about my sea experience back in 1984 (my way of working through the trauma, I guess):
where were the sharks
let us swim she said
and i was keen
as the waves
danced
on the beach
and
we raced each other
through the water
both laughing
at
the sunny
day
and stopped from tiredness
and turned to see
our bright towels
on
the sandy
beach
where we had left them
i was shocked to
see them gone
and
i scanned the
beach
till I found them far
from where we had
begun to
swim
in dancing
waves
high on the crest we
bobbed up and down
treading dark
and
thick water
salt concentration
treading dark dark
and thick thick
salt
water in
awe
for we were warned of
the warm currents
the same day
we
swam from the
shore
we were caught in a
trough with the walls
of the red
sea
on either
side
looming like a force
of doom and then
she said to
me
just kick like
mad
and i did as we
swam along the
trough against
a
mightier
force
much greater than my
will and tired
jelly legs
so
i stopped and
thought
it useless to try
and swim against
the strength of
the
sea current
then
she came back and said
hold on to my
ankles and
kick
the best you
can
and i did but with
no strength left to
carry on
and
she knew me
well
enough to know that
she was fighting
more than just
a
sea current
so
she linked our arms and
smiled at me and
suddenly
gave
me courage
not
to just give in but
to give it one
more chance and
i
waited for
her
to tell me how to
tread the dark and
thick thick salt
hell
in which we
were
she waited for the
wave to build and
take us to
the
crest again
but
intervened with the
force saying that
we swim through
it
through the red
sea
wall towards the beach
two arms linked tight
side by side
and
started to
count
three two one i heard
and went head first
through the wall
ripped
from her by
a
powerful force while
tumbling tumbling
head over heels
and
heels over head
to
be spat out on the
sea sand sea strand
spat out like
the
man jona
through
the enormous mouth of
the sea to lie
there alive
on
the sandy
beach
two friends side by side
no strength had i
but up she
got
and took me
to
a swimming pool with
water feather
light and said
let
us swim a
while
it is therapy
and it would take
away the
fear
for the sea
and
the deep dark salty
death-spent minutes
we both had
just
been to been
through
i listened to her
wisdom and thought
about the
day
and wondered
where
my wisdom was as
i was stunned to
silence all
the
time she was
there
saving my life and
hers but my life
came first and
i
never thought
of
showing gratitude
as i was stunned
to silence all
that
night and for
the
rest of my life and
now as twenty
five years have
passed
i still dream
of
treading the dark and
thick salt water
and wake and
wonder
where were the
sharks
where were the sharks
