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I'm a wimp. I'm the first to admit it. I'm close to thirty and sleep with a night-light and stuffed animals for protection from night terrors that don't exist and cannot possibly hurt me. Horror films scare me stupid no matter how campy or implausible or downright parodic they are. I get nightmares watching 'documentaries' about ghosts even though I don't believe they exist. This is a level of fear out of all proportion and indicative of bigger underlying problems.

Having said that, I don't think I've had more than a small handful of nightmares in my life in which ghosts or monsters or death featured. I have nightmares all the freaking time, but never about the stuff that keeps me up at night. I have no idea why. It doesn't seem at all normal to fear certain things awake but others when asleep. Actually the shit I have nightmares about is stuff I hate in the waking world but that seem laughably petty in comparison, especially when compared to other people's night terrors.

So what the fuck are my nightmares about?

Sometimes they're about my hair being cut. I have fairly long hair that used to be long enough to sit on (a combination of bad diet and a cutback keep it butt-length now) and I'm ridiculously proud and protective of it. Because it isn't something that can be replaced, I have an incredible paranoia that something will happen and it will be cut short. The dreams always go the same way: I try to convince myself that the short cut isn't bad but ultimately realize that what has happened is irreversible and will take a decade or more to recover. When I wake up I always have to make sure it's still there.

The other major feature of my bad dreams is... being tickled. I'm not only ticklish but extremely ticklish and I hate it. Mostly because, as a child, every adult I ever encountered thought tickling me was playful and I enjoyed it because I was laughing involuntarily. I don't like it. I hate it. I hate being prodded in my vulnerable spots. I would rather have kidney stones than be tickled, I hate the feel of it that much. The worst part about it is nobody thinks it's a big deal even though my response to being tickled is to retaliate with as much physical violence as I can muster. I have broken people's bones before over this. I have dissolved friendships over this. I fear being tickled more than I fear death and my worst nightmares involve being tickled and unable to make it stop.