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My father told me of the Nightmare Cure. The one certain way to handle nightmares.
When in a nightmare, instead of fighting the nightmare, run towards it, want it to happen. When the water oozes out from under the buildings, lift them and let the water flow and rise faster. It can't kill you. When the tyre comes toward you, run towards it. When in the disaster try to make it larger and worse.
I found the Nightmare Cure did indeed work and I have used it ever since.
But, as with all things, there is a catch. A catch-22. The nightmare doesn't go away. It just doesn't hurt you. The water rises and rises until it comes up to your neck and then over your head. But you do not drown. The Tyre does smash into you and through you. You are not hurt and the nightmare continues onto something else.
The pop psychologists will nod their heads and happily called this, "Facing up to your fears."
In fact we all use the Nightmare Cure in our waking lives.
We fear violent crime. Hence we watch and read endless crime movies and detective novels. Even children's TV shows like "Black Beauty" have a new escaped convict, kidnapper, con man, scoundrel whatever week after week.
We fear rape. How many books have rape or threat thereof?
We fear war. An endless parade of war movies have come and gone across our screens. CNN gets its best ratings for the Gulf War and Kosovo crisis.
It was always implicit in the Nightmare Cure that the only way to remove the sting from a Nightmare is to want whatever it is pushing at you. No matter how disgusting or nasty or evil.
Mentally or even physically go to your local library or video store or whatever. Take all the books / video off the shelves. In the following by "bad sex" I mean scenes having sexual overtones, overt or implicit, where one party is clearly being made unhappy.
In one pile place all books that have no crime, or violent deaths, or bad sex. I think you will find this is a rather small pile comprising reference books on Candle making and the like.
As you place books on the other pile count "bodies" and "bad sex scenes".
Aha! As you do this exercise you see my point. The sheer fascination we have with Evil implies that we in our waking lives are applying the Nightmare Cure.
We handle our fears by wanting to see how bad it gets, by living through it. Vicariously via a nightmare or via a book or movie. When we emerge the far side unscathed and perhaps uplifted we breath a sigh of relief and carry on with the weight of fear temporarily lifted.
If our fears are small, they are assuaged simply by the threat to and vulnerability of the hero/heroine.
As our fears grow larger, we seek stronger meat. Now in the tales we produce and consume, the hero / heroine suffers grievously at the hands of the villain.
It is only recently that I have realised something far deeper
about the Nightmare Cure. It is the heart of perversion. It only
works if we
That is simply the definition of perversion. Wanting something bad. Thats what the word means.
If the Nightmare Cure stopped there. I would applaud it and commend the conscious daily use of it to treat our fears.
Clearly the Nightmare Cure is present in every mobilisation plan. Every plan of defense and plan of defensive attack. What we ask ourselves, if our worst fear came true? What if they did attack, throw a bomb, invade? What do we do then? So we live through it. We face our fears and make our plans. We form committees and councils and have intelligent and sober men considering and preparing for every eventuality.
But the nightmare still pursues. We have only won the first round against it. We successfully fought down our fears by considering the reality of them soberly and responding in a reasonable and thorough fashion. There are still uncertainties in our plan. There are still casualties and mischance. There is still a possibility of pain and suffering. How have we handled our every other fear we have had in life? By marching forward to see the worst. Except this time the bullets aren't paper bullets and the experience is no longer vicarious....
Whether on the battlefield or in the classroom or boardroom or on which ever point of life we stand... The time comes when we have handled our fears by reason and art. By sober sided plans and precautions. Through the vicarious mental exercise of watching the sufferings and triumphs of our heroes and heroines in countless tales...
And yet still the nightmare pursues...
What if my plans failed. What if the precautions do not hold? What if it doesn't go the way it did for my heroes? What if I fail?
We have practiced only two mechanisms in our lives for handling fear. One is avoidance, the other is to go through it. To want to see the worst and come out the other side. So sometimes we want / make / let the worst happen. This is perversion.
There is one other mechanism. Seldom used. Faith. Faith in God. Faith in our plans and precautions. Faith in ourselves. Faith in our neighbour. I using this one these days. But its so hard. I'm so used to "wanting to see the worst", that its hard to simply accept the best.
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