The mystery of a Sunday night dream during which centipede legs grew out of the back of my neck
Timeframe occurred: on the night of Sunday 5 April, although most likely during the dark, early morning hours of Monday 6 April 2026 CE in Pacific Standard Time.
Lately in our everyday waking reality, grew a beard. Also allowed the fuzz on the back of my neck to grow out. Even after I trimmed around my beard. Decided after a couple of weeks in of growing a beard didn’t much like posterior neck fuzz. Nope. Stood in the bathroom that particular Sunday morning with my back to the main mirror as I looked into a small, handheld mirror to view the back of my neck. Decided to shave off my neck fuzz and all the hair on the back of my neck below the occipital region. Looked in the mirrors again with satisfaction. And curiosity. Then later in night came the dream. Or, would it be best to write, “The dream came later that same day during the night,”? Dream turned from a ho-hum progression of bathroom counter-and-sink tasks into a nightmare of giant bugs and body horror.
In the dream, I’d just shaved my posterior neck. Stood in the mirrors scanning to see if I missed any hair. All looked good. Hmn, what’s that? And that? What!!! Oh no! Oh, God! What the …? Thick black hairs burst quickly thru my skin wiggling and waving. The hairs were curved and pointy. Spiky. They grew in two rows opposite each other from the flesh in the back of my neck. Legs! They look like centipede legs! Big, predatory centipede legs! Like a gigantic, human-sized centipede!
Those black centipede legs wriggled chaotically like wild, crazy, jointed worms from my pale white skin under fluorescent bathroom lights amidst white painted walls and dark cabinets as primordial shadows grew from nothingness to swallow the digital simulation that can no longer obscure and hide prehistoric cosmic truths. And those legs began to wave and wiggle together in synchronicity. Movements rippled along the legs in increasingly harmonious sentience. My neck was turning into a centipede with my head at the top facing the wrong way!
Felt bristly twiggy twitchings bristling thru the hairs of my hairy back. New legs wiggling up and down my back as more legs pushed up thru the erector spinae muscles on opposite sides of my spine. They pushed thru the muscles and fascia and burst out my skin. But there wasn’t any blood. No giant bug was emerging from me. Instead, for reasons unknown to me, I was turning into an enormous, jointed arthropod. Baffled horror surged through me, and I woke up in a rush.
Twas dark. Quickly palpated my neck in the dark with both hands and all of my fingers. My wife lay asleep next to me. No spikes centipede legs protruded into this waking reality. What was this crazy dream all about? Hey, Freud? OK, Jung? Anyone? There aren’t even any exes in this dream! Many of my dreams have ex-lovers in them, but not anywhere in this one. Most of my dreams involve going on an adventure, usually in the beautiful Great Outdoors, and do not as a rule include body horror and scary monsters. Many of my dreams involve people met from all across my long and varied life. In this dream, however, there was only one person, me.
Nightmares are rare occurrences these days. While I will occasionally watch body horror films such as the original 1979 Alien directed by Ridley Scott and John Carpenter’s The Thing from 1982 if they’re heavy on Outer Space-type science fiction, I tend to avoid them otherwise. Sometimes I read material from HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhuian Mythos. What, however, is this particular dream preparing me for? What nightmares lurk way out there in the voids between stars? Or right here slumbering beneath prehistoric rock and glacial ice? What nightmares ooze up into our waking dreams of today like toxic oil from eons ago? What is the message, for are dreams merely sleep-driven fantasies used to solve problems troubling one’s minds? Or are they something more troubling and more prophetic? What do you think and feel about what’s in this dream?
William Dudley Bass
Thursday 9 April 2026
Sunday 12 April 2026
Shoreline/Seattle, WA
USA
Copyright © 2026 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.