Revenge in Dreams is Sweet Indeed

I just finished reading a wonderful book called Revenge by comedian, actor and Renaissance Man Stephen Fry. It got me thinking about revenge in dreams.  As a domestic abuse survivor, the prospect of somehow getting even with my abuser appeals to me.  Now, I can't be the only one.  Certainly, there have been people in your life that took advantage of you and got away with it.  These could be used car salesmen, schoolyard bullies, internal revenue -- whomever.

One big advantage of learning how to lucid dream is being able to get revenge on whoever (or whatever) is bugging the hell out of you.  We all have a need to get even or somehow see that justice is done (to our favor.)  But getting this done in real life is often impractical or illegal.  My life is crappy enough but I don't need to make it any worse by hiring someone to beat up my ex in the way he used to beat me up.  Can you imagine the drooling lawyers that would surround me?

But I can get revenge in my dreams.  Perhaps you may expect the blogger of a lucid dream blog to have a spectacular dream life.  Sadly, I don't.  The majority of my dreams are rather mundane nightmares.  As you have probably guessed, my ex shows up in many of these bad dreams.  Sometimes I can get my revenge if I realize that I'm dreaming.

There are limits to what my subconscious is prepared to do -- even in my dreams.  I'd like to rip the tongue out of his head but have yet to do so in my dreams.  I often still feel tired or watched by CCTV even if I'm fully aware that I'm dreaming.  Usually, all I can do is give my ex a good tongue-lashing instead of a tongue-ripping.

I wake from these dreams thinking I'd missed a good opportunity to let my imagination go wild and stick my ex in a living Hieronymous Bosch painting (pictured) but I guess I don't really need to anymore.  But even if some night in the future I did, it would be all right, because it's only a dream.  Dreams can feel real because that is how the brain perceives them.  Okay, maybe it isn't "real" reality, but for anyone in my situation, any kind of reality will do when it comes to revenge.  It still leaves a sweet taste without involving lawyers in any way.

Image of "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymous Bosch from Wikimedia Commons.