Drowning in Open Water

Date: 3/5/2017

I remember first going down a small dirt road which then lead to a big body of open water. There where houses on the right side of the water. The houses formed a W like shape. An in between these sets of houses was water. In the water where these big things that floated on the surface. It's hard to describe them. They reminded me of a game you'd play at a water park where the objective is to run across these things and try to get to the other side without falling in the water. They where rectangular shaped and moved with the waters flow. I made it across the first set with ease. As I approached the second set I was greeted by a man (who I will refer to as Bill) sitting on his own personal island in a chair. At this set there where actually two paths to take one longer than the other. The longer path connected to the shorter path with the shorter path leading to the other side. I looked at the long path and began to decide "maybe I'll go that way". Then Bill said to me "you know you could take this short path and be done in a few seconds". He wasn't wrong since the short path only contained about three jumps. The only problem was the short path was very sketchy since the flow of the water was constantly moving the objects separating them making the jumps constantly different in width. I stood there a moment an then decided to take the short path totally disregarding what I knew in my mind was a bad idea but did it anyway. I watched the objects moving in the water waiting for the perfect moment when they where as close together as possible so I'd have the best chance of making it across. As I made the first jump I noticed that I was off by the smallest margin and knew I was headed straight into the water. I tried my best the grab the object and save myself but it was futile as my hands slipped right off it and my body crashed into the water. During this all I heard Bill say "awww man that's too bad you almost had it kid. No worries just come back and try again. SWIM UP KID WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? WHY WOULD YOU JUMP IF YOU CANT SWIM?!" I can swim actually, very well in fact, but like most nightmares I lost all control of anything I could normally do as I was completely consumed by fear. It might also be helpful to point out that as a kid I was traumatized from a beach experience when one of my aunts took me out into the water. She was a excellent swimmer but this was further out in the water than I was used to. While sitting on my aunts back I looked down into the water and saw nothing but darkness and quickly asked to go back. Ever since that day I've had an extreme fear of deep open water, if I can't see the bottom I'm not going near it. So I began to sink at a very fast rate, the feeling was like I was being sucked down to the bottom by a very powerful force. Any thought or attempt to pull myself upward was useless. I sank further and further until there was no longer any presence of light, only darkness remained. At that point the dream switched and the water turned blue. I was swimming at the bottom searching for air. An that was the end of the dream.