Posted in Misc | Posted on 08-10-2009 | 2,632 views
So I don't typically get too personal on this blog (outside of my Star Wars and video game obsession), but I had to share this. About once a month or so I have what I call a "stress-mare." These aren't nightmares in the typical sense, but a session of what feels like 100% pure stress. I typically wake up from these dreams feeling like I've been through battle. It's almost worse than a traditional nightmare as there never seems to be a climax of any sort. It's pure "lead up", like a scene in a horror film that you know is going to lead to a brutal death.
Last night's dream was pretty bad - and weird (hence the blog post). There was some kind of escape of a wild animal. The creature was like a velociraptor. Our sized - quick - brutal - etc. My family and I had gone to a family member's house to hide out, but it was pretty calm at first. No real panic at all with the people there. As the dream went on though it got progressively worse. I remember running around the house trying to find the most secure location - checking every window - looking at the ducts as a weak point - etc. And oh yeah - my kids were there too. There wasn't any real violence at all. I do remember my dog getting killed, but it seemed to happen "off camera". As the dream was ending though things were about to get real bad. I woke up feeling completely numb - not physically - just emotionally.
Ugh. I can say that I know where the dream came from though. I read a collection of "end of the world" type stories about a year ago, and there was a story just like that. It wasn't a particularly good or scary story, but it must have been clunking around in my gray matter.
Nice. What makes this even better is that I've had about four weeks or so of insomnia. I found my 'cure' two nights ago. For some reason, a heavy blanket helps me get to sleep (even though its hot as hell). Frankly though if I keep having dreams like this I'll switch back to not sleeping.
There's a scene in there where it shows the dinosaur, then a dog barking, the horrified family, then the dinosaur holding up an empty doghouse by a leash.
i recall once doing an experiment with a friend saying we'd try to force ourselves to dream about the same place and meet up there have a conversation and try to recall it independently the next day. unfortunately i dreamt it and he didn't - one to try again sometime!
@Ray i know the type of dream, it somehow saps all your energy and you wake up worn-out and sometimes in a heavy sweat. at least they're relatively rare!
i did once have what i thought might be an 'astral projection' it happened right at the moment between sleep and wake in the early hours. i'd once read it's apparently possible to move away from your body provided you're aware of this state you're in... (all hocus pocus hippy rubbish but i'll always have an interest in the unexplained nevertheless)... but after feeling like i had drifted away from my body (felt like pulling something out of thick glue and got about a metre away) i got really scared and whizzed back down only to wake up panicking and greatly relieved to be 'home'.
lol, writing it down here sounds insane. im extremely sceptical of such things but after that i did understand how maybe a dream within a dream could lead you to think such a thing was happening... or maybe it _was_ happening! arghhh!
I had this dream where this guy clocked me for wearing an I Heart Coldfusion shirt while playing pool.... oh wait. Never mind.
Ha ha ha ha.
Then at 20, I got married and the situation completely changed. Rather than having totally unreal dreams, my dreams always became exactly what I was worried about. Nothing like having a double dose of being worried about money, college exams, marriage and car troubles during the waking and sleeping hours.
I honestly can't remember the last time I had a good dream. They are either unmemorable or really bad. Boy I need a beer. Dangit, I don't drink.
http://xkcd.com/87/
It's a common therapy for kids with Sensory Integration issues (all the way up the spectrum to Autism) to have them sleep with weighted blankets (search Google for weighted+blanket+sensory). My younger son has low-level several sensory issues and we've just ordered one that we hope that'll help him with sleepness nights ...
@HF: Sorry - I can't seem to find it. It was on my wishlist. You know what - I may have it downstairs. I don't think I finished it.
http://xkcd.com/621/
Makes me wonder if Ray speaks French.
Oh just read the comic. What are you saying jeffc. ;)
@Daniel - Interestingly, for most of my life I thought everyone was able to remember their dreams and control them. I also used to wake up after a dream "knowing" something. It wasn't part of the dream per se, but I'd have this new found knowledge right after waking up. That information never has stuck with me, its gone 5 minutes after waking up if I don't write it down. (Many useful lines of code have been lost due to this) Years later, I started studying the human mind and what we think we know about it - I was surprised that most cannot remember or control their dreams. It was that point that the lucid dreams stopped for a few years.
My take from that and my reading is that there is a self-hypnosis going on here. If you tell yourself as your start falling asleep that you WILL wake up at a certain time, you usually will. Its the same thing with dreams, the level of control or awareness you get will be a function of what you expect will happen, but - it takes practice.
Seriously though, I am told I'm pretty low-key and unstressed; I just came that way "out of the box". I think of those crazy dreams as a way to safely let go of stress. I watch them like a movie, some are pretty crazy.
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