hiddenmuse | Am I taking crazy pills?

As much as I enjoy (and look forward to) going to church ... there are some weeks that I've had nightmares before going to church on Sundays. Sometimes, it's something as mundane as my mom telling me that I'm being sarcastic and that she doesn't appreciate me talking back to her ... or another instance involved people (complete strangers, even!) expressing their disappointment with me leaving the Mormon church, in favor of another religion.

My dream the other night had some elements that scared me to death. Elements of guilt, physical torture, and even discussion of insurance. I'll cut it, because it does get kind of disturbing.

Some backstory: this dream took place in the home of someone that was part of some very negative things in my late childhood/ early adolescence. This person ran an in-home day care, and she was a fellow church member. As such, she had a couple of the children of church members at her home - mainly for after-school care. Since we were children of parents that couldn't afford her full rates, she liked to have us do household chores for her. Things like dusting, sweeping the floor, cleaning the bathroom ... whatever. If I were to protest, she'd say that she was doing it "so I could learn to become a good housewife". Seriously. We never told our parents about this, because we really didn't know any differently, just thought it was par for the course. When we became adults, and the day care had long since closed, we told our parents - who were shocked, to say the least.

Now, onto the dream. I was in this house, with my mom, and a family friend. My mom had a big gash in her leg, and was bleeding onto the floor. When I stepped in the blood, she said something about how I was just standing around while she had a broken leg, and how I was an ungrateful child, so on and so forth. Then, she asked her friend if the blood on the floor, would be covered under the Flood insurance - and was it true that you could have two flood claims on your policy? I tried to interject that this wasn't a flood claim - this was no cause for any sort of claim, that in all honesty, a flood claim would have to involve several properties, so on and so forth. But she wasn't having any of it.

The friend (a nurse) stepped in, and tended to my mom's leg - which wasn't broken. (Apparently, she just went into Jewish Mother mode to guilt trip me, or something...) Then, the friend dragged me over to the kitchen sink, sat me down, and started to do things to me to physically hurt me. I don't remember everything, except for the fact that every time I'd protest, scream or cry, she'd just keep at me and do it harder. Ultimately, I just stopped reacting negatively, and started saying "oh this feels good" and moaning as though it really did feel like something other than the excruciating pain that it was. At some point, I fell asleep in the middle of the torture.

When I woke up, I was freaked out ... wondering what in the hell that dream meant. Why would I be having dreams about being tortured by someone from church? Why would my mom claim that she'd broken her leg? Why would I *not* help her when she was hurt? Where did the insurance tangent come from anyways?