Mesed Up Shark Dreams

When I was younger I used to have this reoccurring dream, I still have it from time to time as an adult too.  I come from a coastal town and I naturally as a child I used to swim at the beach despite how freezing our waters are.  I wasn’t the strongest of swimmers. Scratch that, I couldn’t swim until the age of 9 and I was taught how to by my big sister who threw me into the deep end of the pool when we were on holiday.

 

Before I was 9 we used to swim at the beach, there was a slip way which we used to jump off; this is where I almost drown.  The feeling of drowning is a terrible experience, it’s something you never forget, the feeling of the water shooting up your nose and the panic in your heart when you realise you’re not able to get to the surface to take a breath. 

 

I’ve never liked the water, not for the fact that it almost consumed me but for the sheer reason that I don’t know whets down there.......or I do know whets down there more to the point.  With changing climates and animals being able to adapt to their surroundings more and more ‘dangerous’ aquatic wildlife make their way to our shores.

 

Anyway, not many of them appeared here in the 90’s which made my dream completely impossible.  The dream began like a normal summer’s day heading down to the slipway to go for a swim or in my case a ‘fake’ swim.  It all of a sudden got darker and when I looked down towards the slip there was a very evil looking hybrid killer whale / shark creature in the shallow water looking up at me with its beady eyes and had its mouth open as if it was grinning at me. The look on its face was so disturbing that I still remember every detail of it.

 

The dream was relatively short; I never went down to the water to approach it because even in my dreams I’m not that stupid.  I do believe this dream led to my fear of shards 11+ years later (I take my time with these things).  I used to love Jaws as a kid and Deep Blue Sea but when I hit about 20 or so I started to develop a fear of them.  I had this dream all through my teen years, what it means I don’t know. 

 

One day I was watching a documentary about sharks with my dad and all of a sudden I felt my heart go when I seen one come up on the screen.  I think it was the first time I had ever looked into their eyes and remembered my dream.  An odd one.