Horror dream diary: The Interrupted Ritual

Last night I listened to some Robert Johnson, the legendary 1930s blues player. There are stories that Johnson sold his soul to the devil in return for his musical ability. I recently also saw a movie called “Skeleton Key”. This is about two black servants at a plantation house in Louisiana who used a form of ritual witchcraft called “Hoodoo”. I guess the combination of both of these things must have ticked a couple of boxes in my subconscious, resulting in this latest instalment of my Horror Dream Diary…

Interestingly, in the dream I wasn’t me. Instead I saw events through the eyes of Robert Johnson’s wife!

I was in our house (in the Mississippi Delta probably) one afternoon and I thought that I was alone in the house. I went downstairs into the living room, where Johnson’s guitar lay resting on a sofa, and saw that furniture had been moved from the wall revealing a door that I didn’t know about. Standing in front of it I could smell incense and hear the sound of chanting coming from behind the door.

"At Johnson’s feet were a human skull and complete spinal column."

I opened the door and inside Johnson stood rigid, his eyes fixed in a stare and he appeared to be having a fit. The room glowed with candlelight. At Johnson’s feet were a human skull and complete spinal column. They glistened with the remains of recently removed flesh.

I screamed and he came out of his trance. I ran for the front door, but he stopped me. Calming me down, he reassured me that everything was fine. I believed what he said and trusted him. We went back into the living room where he explained everything, telling me that only good will come from the rituals he secretly performed.

Immediately two men forcibly entered the house and blocked our exit from the living room. They were black and wore dark suits. One carried a black leather holdall. Both stood there grim-faced.

“You have seen the face of Azazliel, and have interrupted his coming” said one. He then went on to say that that a ritual was needed to correct things, and that there were to be consequences for us.

"He sliced the dog open from throat to anus..."

In the dream we had a pet dog (a Jack Russell terrier) and they used rope that they tied to its legs to suspend it from the ceiling rafters, so that it was belly-up and at waist height. One man opened the black holdall and I could see that it contained shiny surgical instruments. He sliced the dog open from throat to anus, and removed and discarded some internal organs. The next thing he did was really strange; he took out a syringe and began to inject small amounts of fluid into various points within the dog. I asked him was he was doing and he explained that he was injecting a substance that would cause the dog to have cancer.

One man then announced that the dog was still alive and would be sewn back together shortly, but before this he told me that one more thing was still needed to complete the ritual.

All eyes were firmly fixed on me as he announced that they needed a human heart to transplant into the dog. I was held firmly from behind as he removed a large knife from his bag.

I struggled and was pushed face down onto a table. They were going to cut my heart out through my back. As the sharp tip of the blade touched my back to make the first incision I jolted awake. It was 4:30am.

I have to go to see the dentist today, so maybe this dream was partly caused my squeamishness about surgery!