Last night’s nightmare hit differently. Not because it was the most terrifying dream I’ve ever had, but because it touched a fear so deep, so embedded in who I am, that even now, hours later, it’s clinging to me like the smoke of something I can’t quite extinguish. It’s the same dream I’ve been having, or a variation of it, always set in this strange place I don’t recognize in my waking life but know intimately when I close my eyes. And every time, the focus is my dogs, specifically Blanca.
If you’ve read my books, you know who Blanca is to me. She’s not just my dog; she’s my soul family, my peace, my grounding when the world spins too fast. Blanca has this way of looking at me, as if she knows every scar on my heart and still sees me as whole. So to lose her, even in a nightmare, is like losing a part of myself I’m not sure I could live without.
In last night’s dream, the scene was eerily mundane at first. The dogs were running in the yard, Blanca leading the pack like she always does, her caramel-spotted eye catching the sunlight in a way that makes her look like a creature pulled straight from heaven. And then there was this man—a random guy I’ve never seen before but who felt oddly familiar in the way people do in dreams. He walked right up to the gate and opened it, casual, like he belonged there. Blanca, being the trusting, friendly dog she is, bolted toward him, tail wagging.
I remember yelling her name, feeling that punch of fear when you realize something terrible is about to happen but you’re powerless to stop it. She darted out the gate, up a hill, and into the yard of this man who, as it turns out, didn’t have innocent intentions. He wanted her—for what, I wasn’t entirely sure at first, but I could feel the wrongness radiating from him like a stench. When she wouldn’t let him near her, something shifted in his demeanor. He took a shovel—this ordinary, utilitarian object—and turned it into a weapon.
I didn’t see it happen, thank God. But the aftermath was enough. By the time I found his house, there were women there who told me what he’d done. They said he hit her, shoved her into a box in the garage, like she was nothing more than trash to be discarded. And the thing is, I never saw her. Not once in the dream. Just this horrible, gaping absence where her presence should’ve been, haunting me.
I kept thinking she was still alive. I had to believe that, even in the dream, because to accept otherwise was unthinkable. I barged into that house, screaming her name, demanding answers from this man who just smirked and shrugged, like my pain was amusing to him. I searched every inch of that garage, convinced she’d come running out, tail wagging, the way she always does. But there was nothing. Just emptiness.
The dream ended there, mercifully, and I woke up in a cold sweat, the kind that clings to your skin and makes you question what’s real. My first instinct was to find her, and there she was, curled up beside me like she always is, breathing softly, her body warm and reassuring against mine. I’ve never been so relieved in my life.
But the feeling of the dream lingered. The loss. The helplessness. The horrifying knowledge that my dogs, my soul family, are my greatest vulnerability. It makes sense, I suppose, why these are my nightmares. Why they keep revisiting me in different forms. Losing them would be losing a part of myself I don’t think I could ever recover.
This isn’t the first nightmare I’ve had about them, and it won’t be the last. A few weeks ago, it was natural disasters—tornadoes, volcanoes, floods—all happening at once while I scrambled to save them. I even turned that nightmare into a piece of art. You can see it at derricksolano.com/art if you’re curious. Art has always been my outlet, my way of purging the darkness from my mind. Writing works the same way, which is why I’m here now, pouring this out.
Dreams like these always take place in the same strange, unrecognizable place. I know it so well in my dreams but wouldn’t recognize it in real life. It’s like a parallel universe that exists solely in my subconscious. Do any of you have places like that? Somewhere you visit only in your dreams, where everything feels simultaneously familiar and alien?
I’m grateful that, for now, Blanca is safe and sound, sleeping beside me as I write this. But the fear, the pain, the weight of that nightmare—it’s still with me. Maybe writing it down will help release it. I hope so. Because I can’t carry it any longer.