Nightmares have always fascinated me. I’m thrilled to host author and today’s guest blogger, Alissa Grosso as she shares her thoughts on shared nightmares as part of her Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour to launch her latest novel, Up The Creek.
Guest Post + Author & Book Info + Excerpt + Rafflecopter Giveaway
Shared Nightmares by Alissa Grosso
In my novel Up the Creek, a young mother becomes concerned when her son starts having nightmares that seem eerily familiar to a nightmare she had when she was a young girl. While the book is entirely a work of fiction, the concept of shared nightmares is something I am familiar with thanks to my own experiences.
When I was a kid, my grandmother owned a vacation home in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. Growing up we would often spend long weekends at the house as a family or with friends. Some summers we lived at the house for weeks at a time. It was always a fun place to visit with woods that were perfect for exploring and semi-tame deer that would eat corn from your hands.
The house was not without its flaws, though. Mice overran the place during the long stretches it was unoccupied. Black bears were pretty common around those parts and pretty fearless. However, there was one beast more fearsome and frightening than all the rest, and that was the deerman.
The deerman only ever visited during my dreams, and when he did it was always cause for terror. As his name implies, he was some sort of deer human hybrid. The deerman looked like an antlered buck deer, but walked on two legs like person. Unlike the cute deer who nibbled dried corn from my hand, the deerman was nasty, vicious and frightening. In my dreams, he chased me through the house and would cause me to wake up in a cold sweat.
Grandma’s vacation home was built for large groups of visitors with four bedrooms as well as pull out sofas and other furniture that turned other rooms into bedrooms. So, when we visited we didn’t always sleep in the same rooms. I don’t know why, but sleeping in one particular downstairs bedroom seemed most likely to bring on deerman nightmares. Perhaps it was something about the way the light caused creepy shadows in the room, or perhaps there was a more sinister reason. All I know, is that I hated sleeping in that bedroom.
“…I learned something even more frightening than those deerman nightmares.”
I was a quiet kid, and I’ve never liked talking about nightmares. I wanted to forget those awful dreams, not relive them. So, it wasn’t until I was in my senior year of high school, that I learned something even more frightening than those deerman nightmares. I was not alone in having these dreams when I visited the house.
We were back in the house getting things cleaned up, as my grandmother was planning on selling the house, when my younger sister mentioned something about how when she was a kid she used to have nightmares about a deer monster when we would stay overnight at the house. But, I was the one that had the deerman nightmares, I said.
Well, after much discussion, we worked out that independently we were both having deerman nightmares when we stayed overnight in the house, and though there were some differences in our deerman dreams, there were a disturbing number of similarities.
Nightmares are disturbing, but shared nightmares seem extra frightening. I did a little bit of internet sleuthing on the topic, and apparently my sister and I are not alone in having this experience. There’s a Reddit post about a family where multiple generations have nightmares about the same scary house .
Click the link here for the Reddit post on shared nightmares
Perhaps someday I’ll write a novel based on my deerman nightmares, but I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to go there. In the meantime, I’m perfectly content to give my characters their own very disturbing shared nightmares.
Up The Creek
An unsolved murder. Disturbing dreams. A missing child.
Caitlin Walker hasn’t had a dream in nine years. But now nightmares torture her son Adam and awaken in Caitlin buried memories and a dark secret. Her husband Lance has a secret of his own, one that his son’s nightmares threaten to reveal.
In Culver Creek newly hired detective Sage Dorian works to unravel the small town’s notorious cold case, the grisly murder of a young girl.
How are Caitlin and Lance connected to the horrific crime? And how far will they go to make sure their secrets stay hidden? Find out in this riveting thriller.
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Published by: Glitter Pigeon Press
Publication Date: January 12, 2021
Number of Pages: 356
ISBN: 9781949852080
Series: Culver Creek Series, Book 1
To buy the book, click on the following links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Alissa Grosso
Alissa Grosso is the author of several books for adults and teens.
Originally from New Jersey, she now resides in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Learn more about Alissa by clicking on her name, photo, or any of the following links:
Goodreads, BookBub, Twitter &Facebook
Excerpt from Up The Creek
Caitlin emerged from a black, dreamless sleep to screams. Adam’s tortured cries sounded almost otherworldly. They turned her blood to ice and made her heart race. She sat straight up, then bolted from bed, blinking sleep from her eyes as she raced toward the door, banging her shin on the dresser as she went. She yanked on the doorknob and almost toppled over when it didn’t yield as she expected. Goddammit. Lance had locked the door again.
She spared a glance toward the bed, but her husband wasn’t there. Instead he was standing, looking out the window. For a moment she thought she was mistaken. Were the screams coming from outside?
“Lance?” she asked.
He turned to her, but his eyes looked past her at some point on the wall.
“What’s going on?” he mumbled, barely awake.
“Adam’s having a nightmare,” she said.
“Again?” he asked. “Maybe we should just let him sleep it off.”
The screams had subsided now, but she could still hear her son’s whimpers from down the hall. Sleep it off? Could Lance really be that clueless? She unlocked the door and flung it open. It bounced almost silently off the rubber doorstopper, which didn’t really give her the dramatic exit she was hoping for.
She still couldn’t quite wrap her head around her husband just standing there looking out the window while Adam cried for them. Usually Lance was the one who woke up first. Maybe he had already gone to comfort Adam and came back to their bedroom by the time she awoke. He seemed so out of it, though. Well, that’s what a lack of sleep could do to a person.
Adam sat on his bed in a nest of tangled sheets. His face was damp with tears and sweat, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. The hippo nightlight cast large, ominous shadows when she stepped into his room. He looked up with a start, then relaxed when he saw it was her.
She sat down beside him and pulled his small body to her, wrapping her arms around him and rocking him gently back and forth. The tears subsided, but he still felt tense.
“Mommy, I’m scared of the bad boy,” he said. “The bad boy’s going to hurt me.”
“Nobody’s going to hurt you,” she assured him. “You’re safe. It was just a dream. Look, you’re safe in your bedroom.”
At this, Adam pulled away from her a little to study the dimly lit bedroom. Maybe they should get a different nightlight. She had never realized how spooky that hippo light made everything look.
“There were trees,” Adam said, “and a river. She was playing in the river.”
Caitlin stiffened. Adam noticed it and looked up at her. She smiled at him.
“It was just a dream,” she said, as much to reassure herself as him. “It wasn’t real.”
There were lots of rivers out there, and wasn’t Adam just watching a cartoon show with cute animals that had to get across a river? That was probably where that detail came from. Plus, she reminded herself, it hadn’t been a river. It had been a creek. She wasn’t sure Adam knew the difference between a river and a creek, though. But a little girl playing in a river? No, wait, was that what he had said? He said only “she.” For all Caitlin knew, this she could have been a girl river otter. Maybe he had been having a cute dream about river creatures.
And a “bad boy,” she reminded herself. She remembered his bloodcurdling screams. There was nothing cute about the dream he had. Still, she clung to the “bad boy” detail. Was he talking about a child? If so, then the river was just a coincidence. She wanted to ask him more about the bad boy, but this was the worst thing she could do. He was already starting to calm down, starting to forget the details of his nightmare. She couldn’t go dredging things back up again.
“Mommy, can I sleep in your room?” Adam asked.
#
Lance was fully awake and in bed when Caitlin returned with Adam in her arms.
“Hey there, champ,” Lance said. “Have a bad dream?”
“Daddy, he hurt her,” Adam said. “He hurt her head. She was bleeding.”
Her son’s tiny body stiffened again in Caitlin’s arms, and she gave Lance an exasperated look as she set Adam down in the middle of the bed.
“We’d already gotten past that,” she said in a whispered hiss.
“Obviously,” Lance said with a roll of his eyes, “which is why he’s sleeping in our bed. Again.”
She slid into the bed beside Adam and adjusted the covers, ignoring her husband. She petted Adam’s head and made soft, soothing noises.
“Remember, that wasn’t real, just make believe, like a movie.” She didn’t want him to get himself worked up again talking about the dream, but it wasn’t just that. She didn’t want to hear any more details from the nightmare because the bit about the bad boy hurting the girl’s head and the blood felt a touch too familiar.
She stroked his face, and his eyelids slowly drooped closed. He looked so calm and peaceful when he slept.
“I thought we said we weren’t going to do this anymore,” Lance said. Even whispering, his voice was too loud. She held her finger to her lips. He continued more quietly, “I’m just saying, I think it would be better for him if he sleeps in his own bed.”
“It’s already after three,” she said. “It’s only for a few hours.”
“That’s not the point,” Lance said. “He’s nearly five years old. We can’t keep babying him.”
It was like the school argument all over again, and Caitlin didn’t want to get into it. Not now. She was still tired and groggy and needed more sleep.
“I want to get him a new nightlight,” she said to change the subject. “The one he has makes these creepy shadows.”
“A new nightlight,” Lance repeated in a skeptical voice. “Sure, that will solve everything.”
“The important thing,” she said, “is that we have to remind him that his dreams are not real. That they’re make believe. We have to be united on this.”
Lance made a dismissive noise and lay back down on his pillow, turning his body away from her and Adam. He muttered something, but his voice was muffled by the pillow.
“Lance, this is important,” she said. “We have to make it clear that his dreams are not real. He has to know they aren’t true.”
He sighed. “What kind of moron do you think I am? Do you really think I’m going to start telling him his dreams about boogeymen are real?” He squirmed around and pulled the covers up in an attempt to get comfortable. She thought he was done, but he stopped shifting around long enough to add, “It’s not exactly like you’re the foremost expert in dreams.”
Visit all the stops along the tour . . .
01/12 Showcase @ Im Into Books
01/13 Guest post @ Author Elena Taylors Blog
01/14 Guest post @ Novels Alive
01/14 Review @ Jane Pettit Reviews
01/15 Interview @ A Blue Million Books
01/18 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader
01/20 Showcase @ Reading A Page Turner
01/21 Interview @ BooksChatter
01/22 Showcase @ Trailer Trash Diva Reads
01/25 Guest post @ The Book Divas Reads
01/28 Showcase @ The Pulp and Mystery Shelf
02/03 Review/showcase @ Our Town Book Reviews
02/058 Review @ Sara In Bookland
02/10 Showcase @ nanasbookreviews
02/11 Review @ Avonna Loves Genres
02/17 Interview/showcase @ CMash Reads
02/24 Review @ Spookys Maze Of Books
02/26 Review @ Jersey Girl Book Reviews
03/02 Review @ Lynchburg Reads
03/02 Review @ sunny island breezes
03/05 Review @ Quiet Fury Books
03/07 Review @ One More Book To Read
03/08 Review @ Quirky Cats Fat Stacks
03/09 Review @ Wall-to-wall Books
03/10 Showcase @ 411 ON BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND PUBLISHING NEWS
03/11 Review @ A Room Without Books is Empty
Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite on-line retailers. And don’t forget many independent bookstores can order books for you and have them shipped to your home or for curbside pickup.
Amazon Kindle Ebook Deal $1.99—January 1-31
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
I’m hooked after reading this guest post. Sounds like a very intriguing plot. I need to find myself a copy.
I totally agree! I’ve always been fascinated by dreams, so this twist really drew me in!
Thank you for hosting this and helping me get the word out about Up the Creek!
Loved your post! It’s a pleasure to have you here.