The Dream About K-19 (1991)

This was perhaps the earliest violent dream that I can remember. It's amazing that I can still remember it so well after all these years.

What I remember was that I was in school, and all of the students and teachers were called outside. Everyone left class and went out to the front of the school.

I recall that we saw a blackened sky once we came outside, and all around us were huge tanks and several soldiers dressed in fatigues. For some reason, these people called themselves K-19.

I don't remember much from when the teachers and students first came outside, but it wasn't long before the soldiers began gathering people up to be killed.

Throughout the dream, I watched as adults and children were being brutally and methodically executed. I don't remember the exact ways in which they died, but I recall seeing blood and gore everywhere I looked. The dream ended before K-19 could claim my life.

I remember writing about this in my diary sometime after I had the dream, and that I made up macabre details about how my teacher and classmates were sliced, diced, shot, and beheaded, before I myself was blown up with an explosive hot dog (I remember I got the hot dog thing from the movie Leonard, Part 6--that movie with Bill Cosby). I didn't remember any major details involving the actual death scenes, nor did I try too; I just knew the dream scared me, and I guess I figured at the time that I could deal with my emotions about the dream by dramatizing it and blowing it out of proportion.

I still don't remember any major details from this dream (it has been 16 years), and my first interpretation of this dream seemed kind of outlandish.

My main concern, however, is not the dream's elements. What perplexes me is the fact that I would have such a violent dream at 9 years of age. Like other 9-year-olds at the time, I had no doubt seen my share of movies I shouldn't have seen, especially horror movies. But my dreams were usually the kind of lighthearted dreams one would expect a child to have and didn't involve violence. My dream about K-19 would be more suited for me today, at 25. I wonder what could have been going on then that could have triggered a dream of this nature.

I now want to revisit this dream. I am hoping that something can come about the next time around.