my dream diary ;

a good one

downtown, alone, making friends with dirty old men and dancing in the streets.

the yellow light on the stones made everything look like a gypsy wagon filled with flames; paisley curtains smoking dustypink and clean night air.

suicide hotlines have to be the most depressing numbers to ever call.

scratch that off the ‘things i never really want to do but probably will’ list. weird shit, man. it almost makes me uncomfortable to write about this.

seriously, though. they’re supposed to talk people out of this shit. epic fail.

some people

really fuck up my sleep cycle. anger isn’t healthy for my dreams. i feel like…i don’t even know. impotent. it’s amazing how one comment can turn me from feeling omnipotent to impotent in .0000537 seconds. grr. i can’t take this anger out on the actual people that destroy my good moods, and i try really hard not to take it out on myself. it’s just pretty difficult to keep from lashing out sometimes. i can’t hold it in forever, though, so my dreams try to get me to release it. i hate sleep. i hate it i hate it i hate it. in nearly every true nightmare i’ve ever had, there is no external ‘monster’. i am the monster. i’m hiding under my own bed, waiting for me to fall asleep, so i can hurt myself. and it’s sick, really, because i know it’s not external. it’s me always me and i hate myself for it. hate me for terrifying me. what can i do about it? not a lot. not much at all. and it carries into waking life as well. am i just blaming myself for others’ shortcomings, or am i justified in my self-loathing? i feel justified. like i said, if i didn’t take it out on myself, i’d turn into some kind of monster. i’d rather be my own monster than someone else’s. grrrr. i wish i wasn’t such a pussy. oh well. guess it’s time for some more self-loathing. nightmare fodder? sure. why not.

sleep disorders i probably have

or, a lesson in self-diagnosis.

• sleep paralysis -  wakes dreamer up in the middle of REM cycle; leaves dreamer fully conscious but unable to move; may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations and an acute sense of danger; usually remembered as a dream. certain factors increase likelihood of both paralysis and hallucinations:
  • sleeping face-up (check)
  • irregular sleep schedules: naps, sleeping in, sleep deprivation (check: check, check, check)
  • increased stress (not at all)
  • sudden environmental/lifestyle changes (nope/yes)
  • lucid dreams (check)
• insomnia - persistent difficulty falling/staying asleep despite the opportunity
• nocturnal myoclonus - involuntary movement during sleep - closely related to restless leg syndrome.
• sleep deprivation - self-explanatory

all of these are linked to very strange dreams.

inspiration

i’m going to start keeping an online dream journal. whenever i have anything really vivid. which seems to be all the time. especially just now, not ten minutes ago. i can still feel the adrenaline rushing through my body. let me backtrack a little and then i’ll explain the dream.

i have really intense, vivid dreams. they aren’t really all that beautiful, either. they’re really lifelike, yet skewed. horrible things happen to me in my dreams that make me question reality later. in total seriousness, i will remember events from my dreams as if they were actual memories. i have woken up, sweat-drenched, frantically searching for the gun i had just had to kill the intruder who was…just standing over my bed? wait, i don’t sleep with a gun. i don’t even own one. i often wake up in the middle of the night and do not believe that i have woken up. the most recent time this happened, i was so used to still being asleep that i rolled over and grabbed my pocketknife. i thought i wasn’t real, so i had to check: i cut myself three times on my left wrist and three on the same forearm. i have learned not to leave objects near my bedside. night terrors? are those the hallucinations my mind is still playing over my glazed eyes? sleep paralysis? whatever it is, i don’t really mind it. i don’t count these as nightmares, even though they are so terrifying sometimes. i just have very very vivid dreams. like earlier, i was lying in my bed, like i so often am, chatting with a friend online, on facebook. she’s not a really close friend, although it would probably offend her slightly to hear that. actually, probably not. we’re honest enough to be okay without being ‘close’. anyway, i’m talking to her online, and i had been kind of dozing off a little, so i decided to take a nap. i’m kind of lightly drifting in and out of sleep, and my cat comes along and starts nosing around me. i pet her and kind of ignore her; she apparently takes this as a personal slight and begins examining my laptop cord. i hate when she does that so i try to shoo her away, while lifting my computer in my right hand to get it away from her. so the little kitten bitch, she looks directly at me as she bites the cord and i see this fiery flash and hear a really really loud POP and i’m stuck just stuck there and my mind is racing and i can’t move and my arm is totally paralyzed by the electricity and i’m thinking all kinds of crazy things and i know i’m trying to scream but i can’t and i try to scream, ‘mom!’ even though i mean to call for aimee. i felt my chest paralyzed and i knew i wasn’t even breathing. i called out in my head about 6 times. the 6th, i woke up. i thought it had been real. my arm still tingles.

i wonder if i actually cried out in my sleep.