Stephen King
Note: I will be using several of my dreams that I had over years as well as stories of hauntings that I have heard or researched to create a fiction novel called “Land of Arwah”—perhaps, I will change the name of this novel later on. Most of this book will be based on several lucid dreams that I had over years. I have been documenting all of my dreams because I feel that these dreams show my creative side. Although I have a very preliminary first draft for this book, I won’t be sharing it here because it needs a major revamp. However, I will share with you some of my least scariest and fun lucid dreams that I plan to use in this novel.
My very first scary dream occurred around age six, I think. It recurred only once when I grew older. As a child, I used to sleep with my mom. My brother would sleep in the other bed that was right next to mine. One day, I woke up because someone was pulling my hair. There was some space between the two beds so I used to let my long hair fall in that space. As I woke up that day, I felt several distinct tugs on my hair and turned around to see who was pulling them. I thought that I was wide awake and not asleep. That’s when I saw this entity. It was the size of a gnome, really brown and hairy, and had really long and sharp nails. It said to me in some language that I somehow understood—perhaps it spoke in my mother tongue, “Hey! come here, I want to be your friend. Play with me.” It laughed and its really long and pointy teeth became visible. I felt very scared and said, “Let go of my hair or else I will wake my brother up.” It laughed and looked towards my brother who was sleeping peacefully. I looked as well and was surprised to see my brother’s really ghostly figure—perhaps it was his soul—sit on the bed. He turned his head towards me, looked at me for a bit, and then he went back to sleep. Now, I got even more confused because this entire scenario did not make any sense. I mean why would my brother ignore my pleas for help? I looked at this creature again as it kept begging me, “Be my friend, let’s play.” Its voice was hoarse, insisting, and freaky—I think that it wasn’t quite talking but I could hear its thoughts. Then, it pulled my hair again. After hearing its pleas several times, I started considering its request while feeling very frightened. As I battled inside my mind about its request for friendship, I developed a stronger sense of the entity in front of me. My mind said, “It is deceptive. It will attempt to be your friend and then it will hurt you somehow. Don’t make friends with it no matter what.” So I decided to ignore it. Then, somehow I went back to sleep again. After that I woke up. During the state that we refer to as being awake, I named this entity “Bagarbilla.”
My lucid dreams matured and intensified when I became an adult. I saw this one when I was in my late twenties. In this dream, I flew out of my body and became aware of it afterwards. I saw myself standing at the edge of my bed. I also saw someone really tall stand near my bed while facing me. It looked like a shadow and I couldn’t see its face. It held and hugged me; then, it pushed me (my soul or mind) back on my body. I started feeling very peaceful as it held me; I knew I couldn’t fly away even if I wanted to. At the time it held me, I started praying to God. And, then it pushed me on a bed filled with roses. At that moment, I started thinking that something is really weird about this scenario because there were no roses on my bed. I witnessed the rose petals scatter around rather wildly as I fell back in my body. Then, I woke up.
In another dream, I was talking to this dark-skinned, tall woman who had really long nails and plump lips. She chided me about something and then she forcibly held my arms. Upon her touch, my arms started burning. Although I couldn’t feel them burn, I still somehow realized the pain as I saw my skin slowly crack and burn. Then the woman left the scene, and a new segment of the dream started. Then, I woke up.
In yet another dream, I came to my senses after I saw myself hovering over a bunch of trees—I think this was my very first lucid dream where I learned how to control my body movements. I was a bit surprised to see myself suspended in the sky on top of so many trees. The fresh air brushed against my ethereal form as I saw the dark green trees rustle. I willed myself to go up, and I moved up and above the trees. But, pretty soon I started falling down towards the trees. This is when I started feeling scared but a voice said, “Don’t feel scared. Try to fly.” I believed what the voice said so I continued to will myself to fly high above the trees. Pretty soon I forgot that I was flying and started enjoying zooming forward, backward, upward, downwards, and sideways. The atmosphere of this dream was very electric, fresh, and animated.
Copyright © by Arzoo Zaheer. All Rights Reserved.
15 thoughts on “About my Upcoming Novel “Land of Arwah””