I had what had to be the worst dream of my life the other night. While my dreams are nearly all very pleasant, this dream really shook me up.
First of all, I've always been closer to my younger brother than to anyone else, even my parents and my past girlfriends. I remember being in a play pen as a kid and they put my younger brother in there with me. I'm only about a year older than him. At first, he didn't do much, but after a while he would stand beside me and watch what was happening outside the play pen. Out on the farm, the only people we had to play with as little kids were each other. (Ever try to play baseball with only one person per team? We did. It didn't work very well, though.)
So in the dream, we were crossing the top of a large oil tank when the top of the tank collapsed just ahead of me. I nearly went in, but my younger brother grabbed me and pulled me back. We then started for the side but the part he was standing on collapsed and he fell into the oil which was well over his head. I tried to grab him, but couldn't. So I saw his head above the oil for a second and then it slipped below the oil and his hand as he tried to grab for something to pull him up before it went under, too. That was the last I saw of him.
Remember that oil is not dense enough to float in. If you fall into oil over your head, you have almost no chance of survival. Maybe if there is a rope attached and someone pulls you out immediately before you can drown, but that's about it.
The sense of loss was at least an order of magnitude more than anything I have ever felt, even more than when my parents passed away or either of my two older brothers.
I climbed down from the tanks and told the guy who had assured us that the tank was sound that he had better get out of town because I was going to kill him the next time I saw him.
By then, the emergency people showed up and I left it to them to empty the tank and I went to town. I found my younger nephew crossing the street but he had already heard about it and was really shaken up, too.
At that point, I woke up. Waking up, however, provided little relief. It took about two hours to fall back asleep but I couldn't stay asleep long enough to dream again.
It's been two days and I'm still shaken by the dream. Writing this isn't helping.
Has anyone else here ever been so shaken up by a dream?