Gloria’s Helper
(P.S.) Gloria is really upset about Teresa and Evelyn – both going into the hospital, already. She hates the thought of losing them both, her best friends and she’d be left alone.
AUTOMATIC LETTER 90
Wednesday night
Dear Adam,
When Gloria woke up tonight she said, “How, I hate that dream!” It was about the doll’s head on the table again but it was different tonight in that we picked up the doll’s head and started to carry it somewhere. We started together Gloria and Gloria’s Helper but then I lost track of her till I saw her climbing up a big hill still carrying the doll’s head.
A lot of people were on that hill, when she got there – they turned away from her. She yelled to me, “They’re supposed to be all familiar,” but it’s my fault I can’t recognize them – this is what angers them so pay no attention to any of them. I asked Gloria where she was going with the doll’s head and she said, “To bury it of course – since she died because of me, it’s only fair that I don’t leave part of her on a table, can’t you see that?” Then she added, “Besides that crazy prophet got some newspaper space again today for predicting the end of the world tomorrow and I believe him in a comfortable way. I’m not giving my things away tonight, but just in case this head has to be returned,” and she passed by all the people who turned away from her and continued way up till, I couldn’t see her anymore – then woke up and said, “how I hate that dream.”
So much for this dream – will talk to you about another tomorrow, if I can.
Gloria’s Helper
AUTOMATIC LETTER 91
Monday night
Dear White Armored Knight,
You reassured a little girl in a dream last night but where was your white horse? You were on a black horse and you found a little girl on the road bleeding all over and picked her up blooding your white clothes and drove or rather rode on your horse to this green painted house getting off the horse and carried the little girl into the house. This is the very first time we ever dreamed of you and you weren’t in the dream long, just in the first part – rescuing the little girl.
There were eight people in the house and they were shocked at the looks of the little girl – then four more people entered and these were very, very tall – no one dared to help the little girl till a tall woman said, “We must do something who could have done such a thing to a child, at least let us wipe the blood up and see what damage was done.” The women washed the little girl – her eyes opened – it was evident that this child was not just a child. The absence of youth from her eyes had been stolen from them by the horrors the child’s eyes had seen. Gentle eyes were no longer there – they had been changed by the eyes of a hunted jungle animal scared of everything that moved and that didn’t move.
The child withdrew into herself, closed her eyes, and wouldn’t answer any questions put to her. Someone suggested that they get a doctor and there was an argument about this – till the child said, “If you’re going to yell all night, go someplace else, I’ve had enough yelling for a lifetime,” everyone looked shocked. Here was a child speaking like a grownup but with a child’s voice – then her eyes started to bleed and so did her arms and legs and panic started again. Especially, when all could see that the child who had a bare scalp now had a full head of white hair.
The little girl said, “Oh, how I grieve. I feel such grief like a heavy curtain invisible but so real,” again the people gasped and cried to hear a child talk like this – it got very hot in the room and people had trouble breathing and someone said, “The little one has just died,” but no one cried – I woke up Gloria here and she was very agitated.
I’m worried about Gloria, she seems to be very depressed since Friday and I don’t know why because nothing has happened. She doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep, and has no sense of feeling much of anything. I’m hoping it will change. If you have any suggestions, I’ll be glad to hear it – I don’t know what’s wrong but something is – please try to help.
Gloria’s Helper
AUTOMATIC LETTER 92
Wednesday night
Dear Adam,
This will be a night without sleep. Gloria does not try to coax it. She prays for mercy for all who lie awake. Perhaps though she dozes after all, or that she seems to sleep. She starts up, aware of the change in the texture of the night. There is a sound of swishing under the wind rush. It is like footsteps in tall grass or tissue paper crackling lightly in a box. A storm must be rising. She sinks back into thoughts. She is too tired. She turns again into herself.
Suddenly, then, unmistakably there is the salty tang of smoke. There is a new sound, a sizzle and a snap as if meat frying and sizzling into a pan. She gets out of bed and stands unsteady, dizzily, in the center of the room trying to orient herself. Something is burning somewhere. Then all at once she understands. Jolted to panic, she reaches for the bedroom door and turns it open. A gust of invisible heat, like an eruption of the sun, flings her backward into the room. The entire hall and the stairway are blazing! Smoke flames into her lungs. With frantic strength she tries to push the door shut, but the strength of the roaring heat is like the strength of a hundred men. She fights to breathe. Now the flames catapult into the room. They are taller than soldiers they are an army advancing with their fearful weapons drawn. They catch the sheer curtains and the carpet; they rush for the ruffled shoulders of her nightgown and her hair. Her lungs are agony.
“Pyramid Lady,” she screams.
Barely awake, she stumbles to the window the Pyramid Lady pushes the screen out, and pushes Gloria out after it. There is a terrible ringing of cries in her ears as she escapes to fall in fainting terror onto the net of the boxwood ledge beneath the window.
She awakes up crying and terrified.
Gloria’s Helper
AUTOMATIC LETTER 93
Sunday night
Dear Good Person,
Alone, tonight we (Gloria and I) decided to go to bed early, we were so tired we couldn’t sit up. I was not prepared for the nightmares we experienced. Gloria dreamed of her sister – she was full of chains all over and she looked like a wolf. She barked like a real angry dog – then there were big vultures swirling over what seemed to be a body down a ravine – then Gloria would get engulfed by loads of birds that would tear at her flesh and every time she’d break free of them she’d see her sister flying away in the sky free of all her chains.
Gloria was like a person possessed with fears but she kept screaming, “I’m not afraid,” all the time she was scared to death. Fear! Stark, terrifying, terrible fear like a nightmare come true. Gloria woke up rolling over and over on the rug moaning and screaming, “I hope the old lady upstairs is really deaf because I scared myself,” then Gloria got up, went back to bed and dreamed that the walls of the room seemed to close in on her and the ceilings stretched and moved upward till it was miles away. I lay at the bottom of a tiny rectangle and a black cloud appeared and began to settle down toward and over me. I was suffocating and I opened my mouth to scream to Gloria but nothing came out but bubbles and blood – I was clawing at the air trying to escape. I looked up and there was Gloria near the black cloud her eyes wide with terror.
She was screaming to the lady with 3 eyes and the lady was flying to get her only she was very calm – the lady reached for her the black cloud faded away and a beautiful rainbow took its place and I became calmer too because I felt help had come to us. Then we heard this voice say, “We lost her, we did our best but she was too far gone,” and we didn’t understand who was being talked about – I woke Gloria up.
I just want you to know that Gloria and I appreciate and value your persisting with this and the trust you have in us – we trust you 100% (percent) and we value your friendship more than words of a tongue can say. Thank you just for being you and for being here for us.
Gloria’s Helper
AUTOMATIC LETTER 94
Thursday night
Hi ag
ain,
Bad dream tonight one we’ve had before but never as real as it was tonight. I’ll tell it to you as a picture, I saw. I see a little girl walking from her house to a barn, she’s going to feed a hen and see if she’s okay because the “Other” told her he’d kill her pet hen if she didn’t behave – she walks in the door of the hen house barn where its head is on the ground and the hen is running around with no head – blood is gushing everywhere and she’s terrified of the blood.
Someone grabs Gloria (the “Other”) by her long pigtails, shuts the door, and pulls her head back hard laughing all the time. He says, “See what you did, look at that poor chicken forced to run around with no head,” the little girl tries to say something but can only make grating, gasping noises – he’s pulling her head back harder and she thinks he’s going to snap her neck off like the hen he had killed.
Laughing all the time, her head pulled back, he brings his cigarette close to the little girl’s throat – her eyes are wild with fear – the man laughs as he gently touched the glowing coal against her tender skin – she screamed and he pulled the cigarette away – then she made the mistake – the bad one – she started to cry and he tied her to a chair and said, “Oh! OH! Now, you’ve done it! You broke the most important rule of all – no crying allowed, you know that, I know that, why did you do it, you bad girl, now I’m forced to punish you good so you’ll never forget again.” You understand, I’m just telling you about a dream Gloria had don’t you or some little girl called Gloria and the dream.
Anyway, once tied, he pulled the little girls head way back and slowly ground the cigarette on the child’s mouth deliberately forcing it against her clenched teeth – her chin quivered as she ran her tongue against the red blisters to get rid of the shreds of ash and tobacco, which clung to her tongue and lips. Her mouth was very dry and hurting. He grabbed her hair again and she screamed with fear but it only sounded like sandpaper scraped over a wire screen. He grinded his cigarette against her neck at different places till she fainted from pain and she and the chair slumped to the floor.
When she came to, he was gone, she was lying on her stomach with her face turned sharply at the neck and the woman with three eyes (one like a pyramid) was holding her and for the first time the woman spoke and said, “Filthy pig, I’d like to kill him but I’m not allowed too.” – That’s all I remember of the dream.
Gloria’s Helper
AUTOMATIC LETTER 95
Tuesday night
Dear Adam,
Great news – Gloria fell asleep at four o’clock and slept till 10:20 at night but the rest no-thanks to the upstairs neighbor. Because no noise was heard from Gloria sleeping, I assume the two upstairs wanted to know if she was gone or not and it would be funny if it was not so maddening the noise they make. I heard it all and finally after thirty solid minutes of feet tramping, feet banging, linoleum squeaks, cabinet banging. I not Gloria yelled, “Hey cut it out you sound like a pack of steeds on the rampage, what are you plain nuts – be quiet.” So then they stopped, realizing Gloria was there. She slept through it all. But at 10:20 she woke up and when she’d fall asleep the noise would start again to see if she was sleeping.
I dreamed of something which I’ll tell you about that convinces me “night wounds” is the right thing but Gloria needs her sleeping pills, temporarily, to be able to go back to sleep or she won’t make it, she needs rest now. Can you get her a one week’s prescription? She’s been taking the sleeping pills at the wrong time. She needs to take one sleeping pill when first awakened by the upstairs noise rather than when she goes to bed – this is important – please trust me – I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Gloria and I have a great idea about the nightmares but I really feel the need of the pills for a while anyway to get a habit of good sleep to get with nightmares (night wounds) started.
Any help you can give me will be appreciated. Next week will be a good time to apply this method, starting now though because she’ll only see you on Tuesday because of the Fourth of July holiday. Both of us will miss you but I might have a lot of letters for you when we see you the next week, I hope. I’m so happy at a new turn of events, I’ll tell you about it later.
Also Gloria is going to see Teresa today after her session with you. Teresa asked Gloria to go live with her earlier tonight when she phoned, so Gloria’s not too sure how to handle this but we’ll see. Take good care of yourself for you and for all those who need and love you – we’re right there on the list because we think you’re the most wonderful man in the world. I mean that! Goodnight now.
Gloria’s Helper
NOTE:
Gloria’s conflict with her upstairs neighbor was a triggering event that symbolized aspects of her childhood trauma. Unfortunately, it only traumatized Gloria and aggravated her fears, hypervigilance, and sleep disturbance. Despite Gloria’s past history of abusing sleeping pills to escape traumatic memories and nightmares, Gloria’s helper understood she temporarily needed them to help her regain her emotional strength, while giving her a chance to continue to uncover Gloria’s “night wounds.”
AUTOMATIC LETTER 96
Saturday night
Hi again,
It worked! I gave Gloria a pill when the racket started and I’m now writing till she starts getting real sleepy – the only thing is I can’t use mental notes but I’ll tell you what I can of last night’s dream. It was winter and winter not all that good. I can see a little girl sitting on the steps with just a sweater and a dress on and she’s begging to be let in – it has to do with a burnt toast or sandwich and she is being punished. He’s yelling, “You’re a real criminal, you tried to poison me.” This is not working, I can’t write. I’ll try something tomorrow or later after Gloria is asleep.
Later
Gloria is in a trance. She slept like a baby through a loud noise and it didn’t wake her at all. Now, I took time to put her in a trance. She had the same dream as last night’s except for minor fragments of it. The dream, I see is that of a little girl who has been punished for toasting a sandwich over the stove on an old fashioned iron grill. The “Other” is terribly angry – he grabs the little girl by the head and he scraped the black toast back and forth across her face and said, “That’s how my beard feels when I haven’t got any razor blades because I have to buy bread for someone who doesn’t deserve it – does that feel good – neither do my whiskers when I shave with worn out razor blades.”
The little girl isn’t struggling, she’s rigid and quivering and her eyes are shut and her face is all dotted with tiny specks of black from the burnt toast. “You know you were bad to burn the bread don’t you and if I didn’t punish you, again and again you’d do it so go out on the stoop and stay there till I call you in.” She goes to get her coat and mittens and hat and she says, “But it’s winter, I’ll be cold,” he slaps her hand and says, “That’s the idea dummy,” then adds, “you’re worse than a dummy, you’re a criminal you tried to poison me with that bread.”
The little girl is freezing outside and I’m going to wake Gloria up. Hope she goes back to sleep now – mental notes don’t work to good. See you later.
Gloria’s Helper
AUTOMATIC LETTER 97
Wednesday night
Dear Sir Ivanhoe,
Real happy, Gloria went right to sleep after she came out of the trance last night. I’m trying it again – in tonight’s dream she was driving away in a chariot when “Sir” the Knight Ivanhoe swooped her up on the front of his horse and galloped away – then it turns back to the little girl she has been brought back after running away. She was found hiding by the “Other” and when she gets in the house, he swings his arm at waist level and though he didn’t put all his force into the blow there was power and fury behind the fist that slammed into the little girl’s stomach. She clasped her hands over her face and doubled over retching with a dry, hacking noise.
“Don’t throw up or cry or I’ll wipe your face in it. You were bad and have to be punishe
d you understand that.” He yanked her by pulling the hair at the top of her head, jerking her on tip toes and he cranked her head up and down in a yes gesture saying, “See even you agree with me,” then added, “if you want to runaway I’ll help you,” he opened the door and shoved her out – when she fell and didn’t get up, he went out and kicked her sides and yelled, “Get up, say I’m sorry,” she didn’t move and he punctuated the words with another kick. She yelled, “You go to hell you monster.” “That’s better,” (he said) “so you’re alive and you dare to talk back to me do you. Well! Well! Well! I wasn’t upset with you before but I am now and I hate these little arguments so I’m going to teach you better manners, get in the house.” The little girl doesn’t answer, he picks her up to carry her and she kicks at him yelling, “Don’t you touch me again or I’ll kill you.” – I have to stop here because the little girl didn’t win that fight either and it’s too sad and I’m too angry to tell you anymore – I’ll wake Gloria.
The Helper
(P.S.) I Hope Gloria isn’t going to hate me for telling these “dreams” – I’m hoping by telling you it will make her forget them for always.
AUTOMATIC LETTER 98
Saturday night
Dear Adam,
You know how they say if you see yourself die in a dream you really die? I died in my dream tonight. I dreamed I did a little bit at a time, but here I am still breathing. I dreamed I did little bit at a time. First my legs disappear, then my hips, up and up, until everything is gone. Like I never existed. But I’m thinking I won’t disappear completely. I’ll trick them I’ll hide all the good parts of myself someplace safe. I’ll hide my eyes which I’m giving to the eye bank and that way part of me will always be alive. Sounds crazy. Sure does. But then everybody has to have second thoughts after a dream like this one.
Gloria’s Helper
AUTOMATIC LETTER 99
Gloria Rising: A Story of Hope and Survival In Dark Evil Places Page 15