Who was that, in the pool?

I had a dream last night. I guess you could call it a nightmare, actually.

I was in a swimming pool, talking to someone, and suddenly I was propelled across to the other side of the pool, but I didn’t know how, or by who. So I went back to look at the security tapes—because apparently, in this pool, they have underwater security cameras—and watched it happen in slow motion. I saw myself going across the screen, in slow motion, and then I saw an arm coming after me, which was apparently pushing me. “Aha!” I thought. “I was pushed!”

I kept watching the tape, to see who it was that had done it. The person’s body slowly came into view, and then, for some inexplicable reason, the person started to turn toward the camera. I was going to see the person’s face! At this point, the dream was very horror-movie-like; remember the scene in The Ring, where she’s watching the video, and she pauses it, and then it turns out that holy crap! The fly is on the screen!!! No? You haven’t seen that movie? Oh. Whoops! I should have said “spoiler alert”, eh?

Anyway, I was very much expecting, when the person turned around, that they wouldn’t have a face, and it would all be blood and gore. Or, they’d finish turning around… and it would be me!!! Dun dun DUNNNN!

So as the person is turning, my anticipation is building. If it had been a horror movie, the music would be going crazy at this point, setting the mood. And finally, the person turns all the way to the camera, and it’s… it’s…

It’s just a guy. Nothing scary, nothing special, no strange twist; it’s just a guy.

Now, here’s the funny part: Because, in the dream, I had been so strongly anticipating who (or what) this person might have been, I was already primed to be scared when I saw him. So when he turned around, and turned out to be just a guy, I was already so ready to be scared that I was.

And I actually yelled out in fear, and woke myself up. (Andrea tells me that I yelled out more than once.) Not only that, but as I lay there awake, I was actually panting for a few minutes, waiting for my fear to reside… even though I knew that it was just a guy in the dream, and nothing to be afraid of.