So I went and had a nap before, a minor headache that I thought would go away with sleep, really didn't. And in the dark and quiet where it usually fades, it actually blossomed and infected my dream. DX
In my dream I was sleeping... napping like I was IRL, with the same sort of headache as what I had. Except in my dream I awoke to something much worse then a mere headache. In the dark I coudln't tell at first, just that something wasn't right with all the shadows I was seeing. They seemed.... darker, more ominous, almost as if my entire world was lack & white. I was scared to turn on the light, but I couldn't quite place why, so I simply laid in the dark trying not to panic. Eventually I got up, and started to avoid turning on the lights, I didn't want to know what my mind was trying to tell me. But I could only avoid it for so long.
Eventually I realised (beyond that fact that I wasn't in the house I currently live in, my brain was still telling me that the multi-million dollar mansion I was in was completely mine and I totally belonged there)... for some reason my eyesight was off. I was color blind, my world -was- suddenly black and white. And for some reason it was clouded, as if I'd developed cataracts overnight. This freaked me out quite a lot, I know that I can live without color if I really must, but the very idea of being blind... as an artist it's one of my biggest fears. I'm lucky in that I've pretty much had perfect vision all my life.
I remember calling my brother, or at least trying to... reaching out for help, because I didn't know what to do, and even if there was medical help available to me, I couldn't get to it with my lack of sight. My sister-in-law answered the phone instead, and at first didn't believe me... or more specifically didn't believe I only -just- woken up blind. By the sounds of it I had been that way for a while, it's like I had amnesia and simply "forgot" that I was legally blind. There were other people around her in the background, and they had the same sort of attitude. So I sort of gave up, and started making my way around the "house" I was in, stumbling along because I could see shapes, but not clearly. They were all just various dark blobs, so there wasn't too many injuries.
The house itself fascinated me. It was build on the side of a cliff, rather than on the top, as if to make it impossible to get in or out without knowing how to get proper access. I remember that much because at one stage I nearly fell through a gap in the fence to my death on the rocky shoreline below. It stuck in my mind. Otherwise the building itself was made of steel and glass, and appeared to be half business and half personal home. There was an office, that didn't belong to me, and I remember that bit because when she did finally turn up she went into one of the offices, where there happened to be a Skunk trapped in there for the weekend. This was apparently a prank on one of my co-workers, but I don't remember setting it up, and it's not something that I would actually do.
But anyway, I'll get to that in a moment. I also remember the backyard was small but well manicured. Almost like it was decorated with astroturf and plastic plants, nothing was out of place. Something that my garden would never be. It had a shed (near the missing fence) and a clothesline, but that was about it. I got the feeling that the front yard was a large gravel driveway and just as neatly manicured gardens out there too, though I don't actually remember "seeing" them. So I gathered that I was rather wealthy, but I am confused as to why I was home alone if I was that rich. Where was all my staff? And why were all my friends having a party without me?
I remember feeling like there was this great distance between me and everyone, that's probably why my house was on a hill/cliff, away from everyone, in a place I didn't know. Despite that, however, she was here within, what seemed like, a few minutes anyway. She let herself in and found me wandering around the... well, what we'd know as "back lobby". A large open room at the back of the house that looked out over the backyard and ocean view. I was scared to wander outside knowing that I wouldn't be able to see the drop before I fell, so I simply avoided it. It was also the only room that was sparsely furnished, so there was very little chance of me actually bumping into something.
I remember that I was pacing back and forth, trying to get my eyes to focus, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I was on the verge of panic really, but I've had this fear for so long that even if I -did- wake up blind tomorrow (fingers crossed it never happens), I wouldn't be as completely lost I would hope. I know my way around in the dark when I'm half asleep, and I can avoid everything on my way to the bathroom, though living in completely darkness would still be hard. But it was this half-blind that I couldn't really understand. Why was I seeing the world only in black and white, why was it clouded over and not gone completely?
Soon as my Sis-in-law showed up things began to change though. I had to explain to her what I was (or wasn't) seeing, took her through my day trying to figure out what could have caused it... and we came up empty handed. She started wandering around and that's when we found the skunk. Like I said, I don't even remember doing it, though I feel like I had something to do with it. Wouldn't be like me to lock any wild animal in a room, especially for a whole weekend if I knew someone wasn't coming back for two or three days.
Then the weirdest thing happened, my Sis-in-law went to release the poor skunk, and inevitably got sprayed. Now, I live in Australia, so I have no idea what a skunk spray smells like, but I imagine from everything I've heard that it's god-awful. But as soon as my Sis-in-law got sprayed I noticed that my sight returned, clear as crystal, and completely in color. My sense of smell, however, went out almost immediately. I couldn't smell anything at all, not from her especially, but not even the scent of the garden. Even the breeze has the scent of everything it picks up along the way; flowers, dirt, leaves, people. But there was just instantaneously nothing to smell at all.
It really was the oddest thing, and I woke up that time trying to figure out what just happened. I passed out a little before sunset, and woke in complete darkness. My brain was trying to determine dream from reality, and I was almost afraid to let my eyes adjust to the slim light around me for fear that I had woken and was actually either color blind or completely blind. I think that those few moments were actually the scariest part really. That moment where I wasn't sure what was dream and what was reality. Although the latter soon asserted itself but I still had to double check... turning on all the lights, and constantly looking at colored things like my phone and my clothes pile.
Even now I'm almost afraid to go back to sleep for multiple reasons, but one of them because I don't want to fall into this dream once again... or wake and find that it's true.
