I've been dreaming things that are quite disturbing if you ask me. I'll try to give you a peek into the dream I just had, just be glad I have no way (yet?) to transfer the images during the dreams to another form, so I can post them on this blog. If you're easily grossed out, I suggest you stop reading now. Remember that these were dreams, and characters fade in and out, sometimes remain quite vague.
I'm together with my dad and we're checking out why a dog is limping his front paw. Rover obviously has some sort of pain, so we pick him up and check the paw. Nothing is visible, so I squeeze the paw, which suddenly becomes my left hand. When I push, a very small layer of loosens up and there is a white head in the center. As I think it's just some infection that I didn't notice before, I squeeze harder but nothing happens. My dad gets a needle somewhere and we prick the layer of skin. Junk comes flowing out and the more I squeeze - to get everything out - the more seems to appear.
The initial tiny spot has by now become an area of about 1x1 centimeter at the top of palm of my hand, just below where my fingers are attached to my hand. This doesn't hurt at all - probably because of my leather like skin, I think - and I realign my fingers to squeeze from another angle. This goes on and on for a couple of minutes, each time squirting new yellow pus onto a paper towel that my dad is holding. Neither of us are grossed out, but instead just dealing with the situation. The more comes out, the larger the infection seems to get and soon enough I'm pushing puss out from the edge of my palm towards the middle. This thing is getting large.
After a while we get less puss, so we think we're almost done. One last squeeze to get the final bits out and then we see a whole new consistency of puss appear. Shiny even, as it were wrapped in cling film, and it has gone from yellowish to darker red. We look at each other, wondering what is going on. A nod and we both figure out there's more vile stuff in the palm of my hand, underneath the now very loose skin.
When I push again, the skin ruptures in the middle and a tear appears and with the next squeeze we get a mixture of maggots and puss. Weird, I think as I push the maggot onto the paper towel. Maybe this is a bit worse as it seemed at first, but we continue our work. The rupture grows larger and soon enough the top 50% of my palm is one large open - raw - wound, covered here and there with patches of skin under which I can look. Only to see more larvae in there, some even crawling around. Some have the regular black head, white michelin guy type body, others have a reddish skin. We start pushing each one of them out from under the skin, while saying things like "Look at that one at the left, and over there, near the top". Seven, ten, I don't know how many we remove but then I realize that I'm getting close to getting the last ones out. I look up to my dad, as he's handling some paper towel, and when we both look back down, the next thing that falls out is a dried - cocooned - maggot. Soon followed by a spotted lady beetle with a maggot in it's front paws, obviously eating it.
The last one is out and there I am, a completely messed up hand, but there is little to no blood to be seen. Quite the contrary as one would expect when things like this happens. I ask for my dad to get some some disinfectant while I try to open my hand completely, to test mobility and to see how much the raw flesh is pulling back after all this exposition to air. It doesn't hurt, but I feel a clear tension when trying to stretch completely, but I know inside that it won't pose a problem in the long run. Dad comes bak with disinfectant and I ask for something to clip off the patches of skin that hang around, with red and bloody flesh beneath them, covered with black spot here and there. Dad tells me to leave the skin alone and disinfect it as it is, whereas I think it would be better to cut it all off to nice and clean edges, to facilitate healing.
Both options have their pro's and con's we agree, so it's really up to me, and it doesn't matter as long as we can get my left hand cleaned and fully disinfected. I never know whether or not I cut away the layer of skin, because I woke up at this point. Disturbing enough for you?