More about invisibility and Hurrying People streaming past

One of the articles in the series inspired by Stella Gibbons's novel My American describes Amy's Lee's nightmare experience in the form of a horrible recurring dream in which she is invisible to the crowds of Hurrying People who stream past and ignore her no matter how hard she tries to attract their attention. She also has a few daytime experiences that trigger memories of her dream.

Amy Lee is not alone in sometimes feeling like a ghost in a world full of real people. 

Examples from real life 

It is not just fictional people who sometimes feel invisible.

The former friend who is featured in the story about the sultanas and the fox cub told me that she often had a sense of standing apart and invisible while crowds of people streamed past. Another friend who was involved in some of the other synchronicities in that article had similar experiences. 

I haven't had any nightmares about Hurrying People myself, but I have experienced this phenomenon on a few occasions while out walking. This comes from one of my articles about energy vampires:

Hurrying People: another nightmare for Stella Gibbons's Amy Lee

In her novel My American, Stella Gibbons goes into great detail when describing a journey home that is one long endurance test for her young writer Amy Lee.

Amy Lee experiences another kind of nightmare in the form of a horrible recurring dream about Hurrying People and daytime reminders of it. 

A foretaste of the nightmare

Amy Lee is on the way to her father's funeral:

“She had cried so much in the last two days that her head felt empty and light. She was so dreadfully lonely! She peeped out of the window as the car moved along the Holloway Road, staring at the crowds hurrying past in the spring sunshine. So many people, in so many cities all over the huge world! and not one of them belonged to her or would know who you meant if you said, “Amy Lee.” For the first time in her life she wondered what was going to become of her.”

No wonder that she seeks comfort and compensation in her inner world.

The Hurrying People nightmare

The nightmare is first mentioned when Amy Lee has been living with the Beeding family for two years. Her parents are dead; she is often lonely, depressed and desolate. She has a reasonably good home with the Beedings, but despite their kindness this foster family is not enough. Perhaps having to hide her writing and her real self is another factor that contributes to the nightmare she occasionally experiences:

“Then she dreamed that the crowds in the streets could not see her, because they were all hurrying past her on their way back to happy homes. She dreamed she stood in front of them screaming: “I’m Amy Lee! Look, I’m Amy Lee!” but nobody saw her or stopped, and she awoke crying heart brokenly in the dark bedroom.”