Nightmares
On about a six-month cycle, I seem to be having the same dreams, or more accurately, nightmares, over and over. Luckily, they never screen on consecutive nights, or consecutive weeks, or even months. I suppose I should keep track of when I have them, but my guess at this point, is about a six month interval.

They always vary in the details, but the overarching theme is tight enough that I can identify said theme. In one, I will have a dream that I wake up, and go about what would seem to be normal things I would do in the middle of the night. Principally, these are urinating and getting a glass of water so I can wake up and urinate again in a few hours. Somewhere in the course of these ordinary tasks, I will spot some kind of unpleasant animal somewhere in the bedroom. The times that I remember, these have been things like large snakes, bats, birds, cockroaches, and human-sized insects with which I personally grapple in my bed.

These apparitions always cause very severe actions on my part, and in the past have served to terrify startled-awake roommates. The actions include, but are not limited to: leaping out of bed, ripping all my sheets and blankets off the bed, screaming hysterically, jumping several feet into the air, flailing my arms around maniacally, and throwing heavy objects(chairs, books, etc). For no apparent reason, I'll come to, and realize with some lingering doubt, that there is no strange creature between the hangers in the closet, and no boa constrictor deftly dodging my blows on the floor. My heart will be racing at about triple its normal rate, thanks to the volumes of adrenaline pumped into my bloodstream, and I will sit still and try to calm myself down, as I survey the various wounds I inflicted on myself, in my hysteria.

I still have a four-inch-long scar on my ankle from one of these episodes, and I honestly don't know how I got it. It sure bled a lot, though. Skinned knuckles, bruised knees and elbows, nosebleeds, and various other minor injuries result from these dreams. I basically beat the piss out of myself. I really dislike having these dreams.

Another recurring dream I have often comes with sleeplessness, for me. I will have some kind of task to accomplish, and find that while I try to do it, I find that it's impossible. I can't really explain what the tasks are, but I can best liken them to puzzles set before my mind, in which I'll perform a piece of it, only to find that doing any piece of it reveals five more pieces that need being solved, and so on, ad infinitum. This is the only dream I ever have from when I can wake up, go to the bathroom, get another glass of water, go back to sleep, and have the same dream. It isolates itself to one night; one night of tossing and turning and fitful unpleasant, unrestful sleep.

Another recurring dream, which doesn't particularly bother, considering I have heard of others having it, with almost the exact same details. It's the "I'm back in high school," dream, in which I drive the car I own now(for some reason that is a constant), to and from the high school from which I graduated ten years ago, four hundred miles away, and at my present age. I find that I cannot remember to go to all of my classes, and I'll have a sharp realization, toward the end of the semester, that I haven't been to Trig with Mr. Kutyna(who actually taught science) in months.

The fourth dream I can remember just happened on Friday night. I will be in some location that's familiar to me in the dream, but not at all, upon recollection, working with a group of people about my age. There's always a woman with whom I'm close, either a wife or a serious girlfriend. We will step outside for no particular reason, and be able to see a good distance from our vantage point. There's always a city, and I notice that it's strikingly pretty, but still noticably run-down. Then, while we're outside, without warning, and without noise, a plane crashes somewhere in the city in front of us. It's a military plane- a friendly -that crashes spectacularly about a mile or two away.

Within a few seconds, a wing of black planes passes slowly overhead, directly toward us, and a trail of horrible explosions follows them on the ground by about a quarter mile. As the explosions advance toward us, the noise gets louder and louder. I think I yell in my sleep at this point, until the explosions reach us, I throw her to the ground and jump on top of her, and then all is silent and dark for a few seconds, before I wake up with a start, ears ringing.

None of these dreams are completely identical from one time to the next, but I do have them regularly.

ck blurted:
Does that first dream happen to occur on the same nights you do excessive amounts of LSD?

8:49 AM, Nov 21, 2005

Sigmund offered:
Freud would have a field day.

9:21 PM, Nov 21, 2005

Tosspot commented:
Maybe your subconscious is disturbed to some extent.

When I was a small child I used to have the recurring dream that I was in my car seat in my mom's old car and we were driving out to my grandma's, which is a four to five hour drive. My mom would always fall out of the car as it was moving at highway speeds, but the car would just continue down the road, driving itself. So in the dream, I was always forced to unbuckle myself from the car seat, crawl up into the front, and turn the ignition off, allowing the car to slow to a stop.

In hindsight, I greatly feared losing my mother and being cared for only by my dad and his side of the family -- that's what all that meant, I am sure.

12:59 PM, Nov 22, 2005

Rachel spoiled the calm with:
I hear old Sigmund himself was big on LSD. Stupid hippies.

9:40 PM, Nov 23, 2005

Will responded:
haaaaa, I have that same high school dream, except it's biology with

Mr. Sullivan that I have missed all semester, along with math in the

freshman hallway...and they sell cigarettes in the commons

6:46 PM, Nov 29, 2005

matthew replied:
interesting...very interesting. i think it means there will be a drought. I've been having wierd dreams where I'll just be doing something normal and then someone I know comes up to me and reminds me to wake up because of school, and i jolt awake. My soccer coach reminded me in a dream to wake up because I had practice in an hour, which I had forgotten about. By the way, what was that ipod like device you had when you were down here? From what you said about it, it sounded like it had some better features. thanks.

8:06 PM, Nov 29, 2005

bahua replied:
It was an iaudio x5l. The 30 GB model. I love it.

11:18 PM, Nov 30, 2005

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