Sleeping is such a problem. I want to lie in bed and do nothing, but I'd also love to get more than a few hours sleep, and it just isn't happening.
Last night I climbed into bed around 12:30, after watching Supernatural (twice). I spent from 10 pm until just after midnight talking online to other SN fanatics. Yes, a new episode of Supernatural aired last night, and yes, it was wonderful. I'm resisting the urge to write a complete rehash of the whole episode. I do have this one thing to share...Jensen's character had several lines that made me laugh out loud, but the best one has to be when he's being interrogated and someone asks him "You think you're REAL cute, don't ya?" and he responds with a mile-wide grin, "I think I'm adorable!" Yes, yes, you are. And that sound you heard? Was about 30,000 fangirls screaming their agreement.
Moving on. I'm going to talk about sleep today. Really.
I am still taking Ambien, and it gets me to fall asleep very quickly, but it seems to level out at about 4 hours of sleep, because without fail, unless I climb into bed after 1 am, I wake between 4:17 and 4:38 every day. I get up at 5, and waking thirty minutes or so before when I am going to really get up irritates me. I'm not sure why, other than perhaps I feel that I'm being robbed of a precious few minutes of sleep.
Sometimes I am able to fall back asleep for those precious few minutes. Sometimes not. I have vivid dreams in that short space of time when I do manage to fall back asleep. I am able to "lucid dream," something I've been able to do almost as far back as I can remember. Sometimes I'm even able to control the dreams. Not all the time.
This most recent one that bothered me was one that I wasn't in control, nor was I lucid. It involved a dinner at a restaurant, with a table for about 12. I can tell you what the table looked like, the chairs, the decor of the restaurant, even what the dishes and glasses looked like. Very, very crisp, vivid detail. I can't tell you who all was around that table for twelve, but one person was one of my ex's, and another was a parent of an old friend, a third was a high school classmate that I haven't spoken to in a while. The parent was asking how on earth I could be friends with the ex when I'm married to someone else. I tried in vain to explain it, finally coming up with the lame non-explanation "Because we're friends." (real life answer isn't all that much more clear: he's a good guy, and we're both grownups enough to be able to be nice to one another. We share a political viewpoint, I like his wife, and we're not interested in ever getting back together...this is a friendship, not an opportunity, fer gawd's sake.)
My classmate and I left the restaurant, shaking our heads over the inability of some people to recognize that men and women can actually BE FRIENDS, walking down a set of concrete steps, and we ran right in to another ex-boyfriend of mine. In the waking world, I haven't seen this particular guy for a very long time, and in the dream, he of course looked exactly the same as he did when I was 15/16. I'm not sure I'd be able to pick him out of a crowd today, like many of my schoolmates, he remains forever 17 in my memory.
He persuaded me to come back into the restaurant with him, after spending several minutes kissing me in the parking lot. Um? WTF? Hadn't I just finished explaining in the dream a few minutes ago that I was married to someone else? And in real life, I am very happily married to someone else. Dreams like this bother me so much. Not only did I go back into the restaurant with this ex, holding his hand, but also introducing him around the table as "my ex-boyfriend Joe" and then kissing him again in full sight of everyone, who gave me jaws-on-the-floor-shocked glares. I woke up a minute or so later, gasping for breath, convinced I'd done something wrong. I was very disoriented to discover myself in my own bed, DH asleep beside me, instead of where I'd expected to be, standing in a restaurant surrounded by accusing glares and angry words.
Sometimes dreams mean something. Sometimes they're just dreams. I attach no particular significance to this dream, it isn't allegorical or a statement about my life, but man, it made me squirm. I don't have dreams quite like this when I'm not taking the Ambien. Never as vivid with the detail, and hardly ever traumatic. The level of weirdness knows no bounds.
Bethenny Frankel is still at the beach
7 years ago
2 comments:
Yep... I went "yiiiiiiiiiiiii" deep down inside when he said "no, I think I'm adorable". Oh we know you are, Dean. We know. ^_^
But about the dreaming, GAWD I hear ya. I don't get as many lucid dreams as I'd like... and I refuse to control them. Interestingly enough, I believe that they take a story onto their own path, a lesson to give me, and yet I don't quite believe that they really have any particular significance. Complicated? You bet! But even though one doesn't need to take action from the story in our dreams, they are an indicator, a bit of insight, of what goes on in the uncontrolled part of our consciousness.
Your dream didn't mean that you want to leave your husband. But it could mean that you are a bit lost in who you are now, and are looking at people who you've known to tell you the answers. I'm guessing the ex with whom you've had the little "make-out" session was an ex who made you feel sexy, and the relationship really didn't mature passed that. It would be an indication that there is a part of you that is looking to how you used to be.
This isn't a bad thing or a good thing, just a thing. We all age, and as we grow- we change. It is a natural part of life. We can look at the past, but must realize that the past will never come back.
I often awake, angered and embarrassed by dreams (whenever I have them) that have me in the arms of another man. Honestly, I'm quite happy in the outside world, but dreams are just dreams.
Just because we dream it, doesn't mean we want it OR need it. They're just flights of fantasy, imagination, or subconscious insight... no matter how realistic they seem from the other side of the looking glass. Oh, and enjoying them, yeah, that's a pain too.
Nothing of which to be ashamed.
Yeah, I think probably all of fandom agreed about that line. Can't wait to see what Demain has to say about it. Wanna bet that he says EXACTLY what you said?
About the dream analysis; Hmmm. *strokes chin in the manner of Freud* ....Insightful, as you usually are! In fact, extraordinarily so. I quote Mercedes Lackey, "You give me much to consider."
All the people in the dream I mentioned by 'name' were people whose opinions mattered quite a lot to me once upon a time! Some of them I don't see or talk to anymore, but yeah, they were all touchstones for me at different points in my life. The ex I was kissing thought that the sun and the moon revolved around me, which was intoxicating at 16 but would be very suffocating these days, a sure sign that I'm lots less insecure than I used to be. Thank heavens.
Probably because I am such a control freak in the waking world, I vastly prefer the dreams that I am in control of, where I look at something and think, "No, that should be BLUE" and it turns blue. They're lots less uncomfortable. >_<
I'm not ashamed, exactly, about this dream because even the most advanced lucid dreamer/dream controller does not really have "control" over what they dream about. It was just really unsettling, and the detail! The concrete steps were cracked and crumbling, with a railing that had been painted over without being sanded and cleaned first...paint chips flaked away and painted over, a sort of schoolhouse primary red. The parking lot wasn't full, empty spaces between a blue minivan, a white Chrysler convertible. Sounds ominous, but wasn't, it was a rare pleasant day. The ex had on a dark Henley style shirt, ripped jeans, the blonde hair I remember from those days curly and silky soft. He appeared out of nowhere, we literally nearly ran him down. I usually remember very vague details about dreams, slight sensations or feelings, not a wide screen, surround-sound, Technicolor movie version. Its gotta be the drugs! LOL.
Post a Comment