Waifs & Wraiths

I'm not sure if it was my dream that scared the crap out of me, or the fact that I awoke from it due to the sensation of someone touching my left big toe. Once again, I can't remember the beginning, but I remember the last half.  This is one of those dreams where I'm not actually in it, but I can see everything and I can feel what everyone is feeling.  Kind of like a "third-person omniscient" perspective, for my literary friends.

12-8 

Kaonashi in "Spirited Away"

The setting is some sort of health institution, either a nursing home or a hospital.  There is a woman in her 40's or 50's, a young woman (maybe early teens), and a shadowy figure.  I don't know who the older woman is, but I feel like we are very close.  I feel like she is someone special to me, like a loved one.  The shadowy figure in the doorway is a tall black waif with a white face, much like Kaonashi (from "Spirited Away), but with a more slender face and wider eyes.  This waif also has long, stick-straight black hair streaked with dove-white.  It is not menacing or ominous, despite it's appearance.  When this waif places it's white, paddle-like hands upon you, you pain and sadness are lifted from you and replaced by an easy sense of euphoria.

Wraith

There are also creatures that are the opposites of these waifs.  I am not certain what evil they wreak.  The sinister creatures are similarly dressed head-to-toe in black draping, wearing a hood reminiscent of a wraith.  Their face is hidden and obscured by darkness; you cannot see any part of them within the cloak.

The woman in the nursing home/hospital makes those around her sad and filled with pity.  She is exhibiting strange symptoms in that the hard palate of her mouth is splitting to form a gap along the middle.  This gap indicates a correlating space forming between the right and left hemispheres of her brain.  As a consequence of these symptoms, her face will slowly begin to protrude from around her nose.  What everyone in this setting (except, perhaps, the waifs and wraiths) is unaware of is that all of these symptoms indicate that she is turning into a waif.

The younger girl become inconsolable, sobbing with intense emotional distress that I can feel.  She runs from the room, across the hall, and into the hallway of the room directly opposite the previous one.  Soundlessly, mouth forever slack, the waif follows.  It floats across the floor and appears quickly, but is not startling.  It looks down at the girl wracked with sobs, and a wraith floats slowly past in the hallway, paying no mind.

"Help me," the girl says to the waif through her tears. The way she says it is like the emotional pain is literally unbearable.  The waif lifts her up with large paddle hands, and relief washes over her as the pain from within dissipates.  Like a sledding down a snow-covered hill, she reaches complacency, and begins to slide further towards the inevitable euphoria.  A little bit of it trickles in at a time.  Right before the surge, I wake up.