I’ve been in a rut the last few months. Gradually trying to feel myself again, so I’m back with something different. A bit more on the whimsical side. While I don’t partake in spooky season festivities, I’ve decided to put my hat in the ring this time around.
I’m ashamed to share that I never learned the words to Meek Mill’s Dreams & Nightmares. I understand that my black card is in a tenuous position due to this fact, so I actively tried working on it this past summer. I did fail. Over the years, I've had some peculiar dreams of my own—and found myself in those of others. Some unsettling, others strangely beautiful. Not quite nightmares, but haunting all the same. Let’s talk about them. Think of this as a personal anthology.
Ghost stories
Two dreams of two ghosts: Honeywell*, who you may be familiar with by now, and a more recent one from over the summer, Mr. Toothpick. These dreams occurred a month or so apart from each other not long ago, yet the same thing happened. And that’s what made me sit up.
It started with me spotting Honeywell among a small crowd of people as their meeting drew to a close. A rich song, a prayer and a final “amen.” He wore a suit, looking put together as always. Thankfully, I’d seen him before he could see me. I felt a sense of dread and rushed to the bathroom at once to “fix my face.” I tried to fix my brows. They smudged. My foundation melted over the sweat on my face. My lip liner failed to apply cleanly. Nothing was working. I couldn’t perfect anything. It’s like when you’re in a dream and you’re either running towards something or away from it, but you can never seem to do it fast enough. Like your feet are in molasses. A friend stood next to me in the ladies room, Cris*, and she kept warning me that by the time I got back out there, he’d be gone. I eventually accepted my unkempt face, and went out to meet him. I scoured the rooms for him and the entrance. I came out to the car park and searched through many faces, all to no avail. He was gone.
There’s men that like women, and there’s men that like the fact that women like them. I’m led to believe Mr. Toothpick* is one of them. I met him around the 4th of July. Overall decent conversation, exchange of socials, and light flirtation. A couple weeks later we briefly “linked” —because “date” seemed too big a word for Elmo— in another city. He was a gentleman. Radio silence for a week followed. I was down about it, so I went out the following weekend on a whim. He ended up coming to the same event and said he wanted to make dinner plans.
Till date, he has again disappeared into the ether. Another ghost lost to the sands of time. In the dream, I was in a huge mall, circling about, window shopping with friends. I see him, and he sees me. He walks up to me and smiles, says I’m getting “thick”, and asks if I wanted to do lunch right then and there, and that there was a spot in the mall that he liked. Of course, my happy, overly eager ass says yes. We enter a large dining hall and sit at a long table, across from Will Smith of all people. I do the same thing as before, immediately standing up and making my way to the bathroom. I just had to fix my hair. I struggled to put my braids into a bun with just the right height and just the right shape. Cole, another friend from college that somehow made it into the ladies’ with me, said that by the time I’m done, he’d be gone. By the time I reentered the restaurant, Toothpick had left, too.
The moral of this story is not that Nigerian and Haitian men are inconsistent and terrifying, although there is a level of truth in that. It’s the pattern. Two very different men that I met in very different stages of my life, somehow made me feel the same way about myself. Why did I feel the need to perfect myself? To prove to them that I hadn’t “fallen off” and that I was valuable enough? Why was there a timer somewhere for when they’d eventually leave me where they found me? I knew the performance was futile, but I decided to do the dance anyway. Despite all the inner work I’ve been doing, it still seems I’m a while away from being fully secure in myself. I understand the weightiness of this work, but it tends to feel like an uphill battle with no summit. Just a continuous climb.
Jumpscares
Short preface: I’d had dreams of this individual before. Dreams in which she’d talk about me or laugh at me. They took place before what I’m about to share. Not claiming clairvoyancy whatsoever, but my pattern recognition is top tier.
This dream was not my own but a nightmare to me all the same. It was early 2025. Presidents’ Day. There was a brunch party at Barbie’s* dreamhouse. (Sidenote: Parties of all sorts are the bane of my existence. They’re usually where I start to see nonsense.)
We all have them. Perhaps we don’t know it, but trust, each of us do. They lay dormant, inconspicuous in rooms full of laughter and good cheer. Supposed “friends” that aren’t so friendly for one reason or another. This afternoon at Barb’s was no exception.
A friend at the time, Raven*, eventually showed up with her husband. She giddily sat next to me at the kitchen island.
“Nne, I had a dream and you were in it.” She kept laughing for some reason.
“Hmm ok, what happened?” I was tense already, because really, what was so hilarious?
She said that in her dream, she and her husband were getting a divorce. I looked over to him across the table. He looked annoyed and muttered, “Yeah, what a stupid dream.” She quickly found herself a new beau, and he wanted to publicize their relationship. He grasped for her hand shamelessly, and she heard a dramatic gasp behind her. She turned to see me, mouth gaping presumably. Apparently, I would later confront her with the resounding last words: “You get all the men!”
Then she laughed in my face. I felt I had to play it off and laugh too, to keep things from being uncomfortable. But I shouldn’t have. I couldn’t relax the rest of the day, replaying her dream and my nightmare in my mind. I was terrified that this individual, someone I confided in often about my disappointments, would perceive me this way. As a perpetual loser, and herself, a hapless victim of my vitriol. Why she thought I would be so invested in what she chooses to do with her cooch, is beyond me. I felt gross and overexposed. While I don’t hate her and I believe she doesn’t hate me, I never looked at her the same.
The Smiling Women
This one happened years ago during the Naija* saga.
I found myself in a long winding line of women. They were all dressed up and polished. Some were well-formed and beautiful, while others were uncanny. The latter had faces that seemed distorted, twisted in one way or the next. Like they were meant to be beautiful, but one ingredient was slightly off. When they smiled, it made me uneasy. They were tight-lipped and crooked. They felt fake. Their eyes eerily distant from each other. The majority of them looked alike. What were we even waiting for?
I eventually got to the front of the line —or perhaps a checkpoint, as the line continued forward— to meet a woman seated at a table. She reminded me of an aunty-figure, dark-skinned and stocky build. She felt stern and cold, like she was trying to move the line along quickly and couldn't stand the hassle of the delays.
She looked at me and said, "Ị chọrọ ịlụ di?" As this was one of the few times I've ever heard Igbo instead of English in my dreams, I remembered it vividly. She had asked me if I wanted to get married.
"Yes, ma." Like I would in real life, I responded in English. She raised her hand, gesturing at me to continue down the line. As if to say wait your turn. That is when I woke up. When I told mumsy about it, she felt it was good because of the keyword “marriage”. I'm not the superstitious type, but admittedly the dream felt ominous. Was it my fear of the expectations of womanhood and marriage? Was it my fear of the smiling women, and how they contorted themselves to be perfect? Or was it my fear that I’d have to do the same?
The Woman in the Next Room
Context: This dream happened a few months back.
I had a dream about an African woman I saw in the distance. She was slim, but curvy. Her hair was in bantu knots of some sort, and her head was adorned with coral beads. She was ancestral, almost regal. Something about her presence felt dark and frightened me at first, yet I was entranced by her. She peered back at me and I followed her. As I walked closer to her, she walked away from me and disappeared into the next room. When I entered that room, I would see another version of her. Her hair was different or her body was different. She was mischievous and couldn’t be held down, no matter the form she took. I liked that about her.
“Finegirl, where are you going?” I’d given her a name, now. I followed her again and she evaded me still. Then, I entered a big palo. (Sidenote: Many Nigerian families call the living room, or parlor, the “palo”. This felt like a distinctly Nigerian home I was in, so “palo” fits.) The walls were a rustic beige, but glass vases of different hues lined the shelves, sharply interrupting their monotony. A little girl sat down in the middle of the scene, watching one of those old school televisions with the notches and antennas. She never looked at me. The woman smiled, and the lights started to flicker. She sat at the table and with each flick of light, it was like a picture had changed. In one frame she smiled. In another, she sat across from a man at a table. They looked like they were in love. Her hand was in his hair.
I don't really know what this dream means, but it feels positive. It doesn't end in doom and gloom. I feel like my younger self is involved here somewhere. I just can’t put my finger on how. What I can say is I saw a woman I admired evolve, and everything felt right about her each time. Like it somehow gave me permission to follow suit. That must count for something.
There are no fancy, prophetic links between my nighttime imaginings. Just a mind that’s trying to shed the fear of being perceived, the self-denial that comes with conforming, and the uncertainty of becoming something new. I’m starting to make peace with that last one, curious to see what version of Finegirl I’ll become.