As an English literature graduate, I have always found solace in the world of imagination. Novels have provided refuge, an escape into realms where anything is possible. Before the genocide here in Gaza, my life seemed predictable; nothing could truly surprise me. “Expect the unexpected” was a guiding philosophy that helped me navigate many of life’s challenges.

But then the genocide shattered my world in ways I had never anticipated. The horrors I now faced were beyond anything I could have imagined, beyond any nightmare I could have conjured.

For more than 450 days and nights, I was unable to sleep deeply, perpetually haunted by nightmares that refuse to release their grip on my soul.

I had heard of insomnia before, but I never truly understood it until it became my relentless companion, a shadow that followed me every night. I once adored the night – the tranquility, the solitude, the opportunity for reflection. But I came to despise the night. During the war, there was no serenity, no peace to be found in the hours after sunset.

The Israeli drones never ceased. As the sun dipped below the horizon, the sky became filled with the deafening hum of these machines. Their omnipresence paralyzed our mental health, gnawing at our bones with an unrelenting message: “No sleep. No peace. Only suffering.”

In the creeping cold of winter the night would stretch on, moving in a slow, suffocating crawl. As we lay awake, memories and emotions would flood our minds. In those few hours, time seemed to drag us deeper into despair.

Israel has engineered sleeplessness for its victims: the endless barrage of American-made shells, indiscriminately thrown, shattering the silence and pouring fear into our hearts. I remember one night before the ceasefire that felt like hell on earth. Shells rained down in rapid succession: every 10 seconds an explosion, each one a reminder that death was ever-present, ever-looming.

My soul felt drained, emptied of all energy and hope. No matter how tightly I pressed my fingers into my ears, the deafening sound of the shells never faded. My family and I huddled together in silence, awaiting death, knowing it would come for us all.

I longed for the nights of peace – those simple, precious nights when I would sit with my family, share a cup of tea, or laugh at a silly cartoon with my nieces and nephews. I missed the nights when I could indulge in simple pleasures, like watching a TV series or completing overdue tasks.

Normal life became a distant memory as nights turned into a prison in which the unyielding rules of survival controlled me, and where I had no agency. I missed sleeping peacefully. I missed serenity. I missed the safety that felt so distant.

To survive, I trained myself to sleep only two hours daily. But the brief rest brought little solace. My mind constantly replayed the images of my fellow Gazans being targeted in their homes, and even in my few moments of sleep, fear followed me like a shadow.

Paralyzed by fear

Once, I dreamed that I was struck by an airstrike and trapped beneath the rubble, unable to breathe. I cried out, desperate for air, but the weight of destruction drowned my voice. My sister woke me just as I was groaning and weeping in my sleep. I spent the rest of that day in bed, my body too weak to rise, paralyzed by fear.

My nightmares were derived from our reality of constant peril.

In December 2023, my family and I sought refuge in a small room on the eastern side of our house, fearing the random shells that fell from the west. At 2:00 am, I awoke to the sound of a quadcopter hovering outside our window. I felt crushed by the thought of how many bullets could pierce my body and whether my family and I would survive.

I lay motionless, waiting. The hurtle and thunder of a bullet striking the wall beside us filled the air, but still, I did not move. I could do nothing but exist in the silence of impending death. Three minutes later, the quadcopter flew away.

I tried to sleep, but the quadcopter pursued me in my subconscience. I dreamed I was swimming in the Port of Gaza when the quadcopter began firing at me. I swam desperately toward the shore, but the bullets followed. I found temporary refuge under a staircase, hiding from the inevitable. But in my heart, I wondered if I would survive the real thing.

Even the aid that is supposed to help us can be triggering.

In early March 2024, a balloon carrying humanitarian aid fell near my home. I was sitting on the roof, trying to get an internet connection, when the noise of the balloon’s descent caused me to freeze in fear. The sound was eerily similar to that of a falling bomb, a death sentence in the making.

That night, the nightmare returned: I dreamed that I was buried beneath the balloon, helpless and trapped. People gathered around me, but none came to my aid. My sister woke me again, and I screamed in panic. The pain in my muscles lingered throughout the day, but the injury wasn’t physical – it was the anguish of my soul.

The anxiety and fear increased with each day and night of terror and exhaustion without end.

In early October last year, rumors spread that we would be forced to leave the north. This, I feared, would be the final blow, the one that would take my life for real. My mind spun in circles, my body froze, my hands turned ice cold.

And then, the nightmares came. I dreamed that my family and I were forced to flee through the Netzarim Corridor; but as I tried to return to the north I was shot in the head by the quadcopter. I died in my parents’ arms, and though I screamed for them they could not hear me. I woke up in tears, crying uncontrollably, grateful to be alive, yet still feeling the weight of fear in my heart.

With the ceasefire, the night is no longer a battlefield, but exhaustion still clings to every moment of survival.

Though the scars remain, the deep internal wounds have begun to mend. The night, once my greatest enemy, is beginning to return to what it once was: a haven for rest and reflection.

Perhaps, as the nightmares fade, I can once again experience the kind of dreams that make life feel normal again.

Asmaa Abdu is an academic writer and a project coordinator at UCASTI.

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• eiGazaDispatches
• trauma

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