Freeze Frame - The Nightmare

I was having one of those weird, repetitive dreams last night where I was able to freeze moments in time. Awake, it sounds really cool. In the dream it was nightmarish and since the dream wouldn't end it became a pain in the ass.

Freezing time is a pretty interesting concept:

• What if someone had a medical condition that is presently incurable but we know we'll eventually conquer it?
• What if little Billy is about to get hit by a truck and the only way to save him was to freeze time?
• What if you knew that the next person through the door was going to deliver the most heart breaking, life changing news you ever heard?
• What if you were in a grocery store that was being robbed, the trigger is pulled, the bullet has left the gun and you've frozen the moment to save the helpless victim?
• What if you were camping in the shadow of a massive dam that suddenly bursts; a wall of water is crashing down on you? You freeze the moment.
• What if you were in a passenger jet that suddenly decompresses and begins diving towards the earth, but you are able to freeze the moment?

All of these things actually happened in my dream(s) last night. It was the kind of deal where I would wake up from the dream, say to myself, "That was weird.", roll over and go right back into the dream again. That was the pain in the ass part.

The nightmarish part was that once I was able to freeze the moment during each vignette of my dream, I was frozen right along with every thing else. I was aware, my thoughts continued, and unless we all stayed like that for eternity, I had to decide, in every single case -- to restart time.

So I had to decide someone would die from an incurable medical condition. And not only let Billy get hit by the truck but stand helplessly by while I watched the inevitable unfold. I had to start time to have someone rush into the room and tell me my wife died. I had to let the girl in the grocery store get shot and we all had to drown under a wall of unstoppable water. And I had to sit in the airplane, watching the ground rush at us, listening to the last screams of people who knew they were dying.

Somewhere in my subconscious I must have thought it would be really cool to be able to stop time and prevent disaster. It is probably the part of my brain that still wishes the world really had super heroes... and that I was one of them. But the logical part of my brain wouldn't allow me that minor deception, even in my sleep. Thus nightmares are born.