I don't think I've written a whole lot about Remeron (my anti-depressant) on here. The thing goes somewhat unappreciated, maybe because there isn't anything to complain about. It doesn't give me any side effects so I mostly stopped noticing it was there. Or, maybe, my memory is simply bad enough that I've forgotten I'm on any meds anymore. But every time I manage to run out of it, I realize just how much help it is.
A neurologist several years ago put me on it because I was both depressed (had been for years) and needed extra help getting to sleep (as you all understand). I tried the generic first and it worked awesome. I felt like a new person. I was suddenly able to have hope for the future again and became usefully optimistic. I figured out how to smile. But then the side effects started- my muscles started to hurt. At first I thought I'd just pulled something, until I noticed it was happening to a bunch of muscles and would rotate around and change which ones it affected for no apparent reason. I tried staying on it but by the end of a month I was in constant pain. I felt so good otherwise that my doctor put me on the brand name instead and, just like we were hoping, it worked- no muscle pain, but all the good effects were still there.
When I got off of Xyrem a year ago, I stayed on Remeron, and I was glad I did. I didn't know how glad until the first time I ran out. I switched from the mail order system to picking it up from pharmacies because we kept moving, and with my memory you can imagine what would happen literally every month. I would get down to five tablets and start thinking I should refill it. I'd remember every night since I take it before bed, but forget by the morning. I wouldn't write myself a note until I was down to two, then finally make it to a pharmacy in the middle of nowhere, where they would have the generic or nothing at all and have to order it, and this would always happen to fall on a Friday somehow, so then I would have to wait until Monday and not take it for one or two nights.
The first time this happened, I was expecting to feel depressed. Instead, sleeping just got ten times harder. My dreams got more persistent, intense and disturbing. I did notice a drop in my mood but I was more concerned about the lack of sleep. On a good day I'm petty discombobulated, but without Remeron I get even more out of it and confused.
You would think, with such a big difference, I would learn after the first few times, but no. I keep running out. I think I've remembered twice out of the last ten or so times. I finally (now that we're settled again) switched it back to mail order, three months at a time, so it will no longer be up to my extremely efficient brain. But not in time to avoid it happening again this past weekend, of course. The first night I didn't have any, I just stayed up. My husband and I drank lots of caffeine, ate tons of cookies (Uqi's chocolate chip!!) and watched Stargate Atlantis. Between that and playing cards we managed to stay awake until around 2AM. My ploy sort of worked that night. I got up around 8 or 9 as usual so that I mostly skipped the dreaming phase that gets so much worse without Remeron.
I was feeling pretty smug (though more sleep deprived than usual) when I went to pick up my Remeron yesterday, until they told me that it hadn't come in and they couldn't get it until today. Feeling exasperated with myself for getting in this situation to begin with, I didn't try anything fancy last night, just got in bed and really wished that I hadn't.
I was looking at star charts like in Stargate SG-1 (which we started rewatching yesterday) when somebody came in with some fried chicken in a plastic bag and told me I was supposed to deliver it to this Buddhist monk. Apparently she lived at the top of this really steep hill even though we were supposedly in my extremely flat hometown. Actually it was more like a small mountain, with these crazy round boulders making it up. So I'm really hungry, climbing this weird mountain, sort of light-headed and trying to determine if a) the chicken is gluten-free and b) if it's okay to eat somebody else's lunch. I poke at the chicken and it seems GF so I try a piece. It's not tasty but it isn't poisonous either, so I keep eating it. I get up to this temple on this mountain and deliver the chicken and this monk lady is asking me all these really philosophical questions about stuff. I'm mostly just confused but sort of happy because the stuff she's talking about is interesting, but in the course of that I forget to deliver the chicken and just keep eating it. Then she sends me on my way and I'm wandering around my aunt's house seeing everything she's recently remodeled. Then a bunch of my cousins are there and we're taking my great aunt to see a newly flooded area of the city. It was clearly a highway before, but now the ocean is there, and a couple of highway bridges are acting like piers. We walk out on them, talking, and I'm telling them the whole city is going to be flooded soon.
So, this dream's not too bad, you're probably thinking. Well, then I feel pain in my mouth on the inside of my bottom lip. I get all annoyed thinking it's probably just something I accidentally bit as I was eating all the GF fried chicken. It's bleeding a lot and the blood tastes metallic like blood does. I start trying to find somewhere to spit it out because it tastes disgusting. It starts welling up more and more and gets all over my hands as I try to hold it inside my mouth. I find a dirty sink in an art class and spit the blood out into it, but it keeps coming and the texture turns really globby and clotted. The texture disgusts me even more and I just keep spitting it out, hoping it will stop. It tastes horrible and I feel nauseous.
It slows down a little, thankfully, but it tastes worse and worse, almost like rotting. In the sink, blood is mixed with old acrylic paint that many students have washed off of brushes. It makes a horrible, bloodstained rainbow.
Needless to say, I got up right away and went for the caffeine. I'm never under-appreciating my antidepressant again (until, you know, I forget about this whole thing in the next five minutes).
Showing posts with label dream. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dream. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Grandparents' Glass Maze House
Last night, I was visiting my grandparents at their house in small town Texas. In real life, they have a back room that they basically use to store stuff and when I was little it kind of creeped me out back there. So, of course, for as long as I've been having nightmares, some of them have taken place in there.
In the dream I was having seriously crazy drama with my cousins for awhile when we finally decided to go back into that room. It was dark and we were enjoying creeping each other out. Each time we found a new doorway, we would go through to see what was there. At first, the rooms looked like the rest of the house and formed hallways in an almost maze-like fashion, but then we passed this huge floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on a small courtyard. There was furniture piled outside in the rain with grass growing all around it.
Of course, I was like, "we should go try to get in there!" because my fiance an I have been talking about needing a couch for some time, lol. So then my cousin spots a door leading out there, but it's coming from a different direction, so we start heading that way to see if we can find it.
We emerge from the dark, cramped hallway of dark wood and wallpaper into this giant ballroom with walls and ceiling made out of glass. Looking through the walls, we see other glass rooms receding into the distance in every direction, most of them piled up with old furniture or figurines on shelves. There's a lot of stuff but it's pretty spread out between the rooms, leaving lots of empty floorspace. We spread out individually to see what's around, and I spot the door into the courtyard off to my right. I start heading over there, but I run smack into a glass wall because I'm so focused on what's behind it that I don't see it in time, which makes everybody (including me) laugh.
I look around and find the way around the wall, which happens to be a wheelchair ramp with old hotel brass railings and ugly red patterned carpet. So I run up it and around the wall and reach the glass door.
I look outside and see the courtyard more clearly. Against the wall to my left is the furniture and the small grassy space is otherwise overgrown. The blue couch I was so excited about has a big hole in it and is next to this hilariously 70s chair with a giant light blue and puke orange plaid pattern on it. My cousins have come over and we're laughing at how ugly the chair is.
Suddenly I hear barking and realize that there are three boxers (all of them brown and white) in the yard, two of them chained up next to the door and the third roaming free. My cousin opens the door and starts to step outside and the dogs go nuts. Just then, my grandmother finds us, telling us off for going so far back into the house. She goes out and gives the dogs chunks of steak to quiet them down.
And then I woke up, still wondering if that couch can be repaired.
In the dream I was having seriously crazy drama with my cousins for awhile when we finally decided to go back into that room. It was dark and we were enjoying creeping each other out. Each time we found a new doorway, we would go through to see what was there. At first, the rooms looked like the rest of the house and formed hallways in an almost maze-like fashion, but then we passed this huge floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on a small courtyard. There was furniture piled outside in the rain with grass growing all around it.
Of course, I was like, "we should go try to get in there!" because my fiance an I have been talking about needing a couch for some time, lol. So then my cousin spots a door leading out there, but it's coming from a different direction, so we start heading that way to see if we can find it.
We emerge from the dark, cramped hallway of dark wood and wallpaper into this giant ballroom with walls and ceiling made out of glass. Looking through the walls, we see other glass rooms receding into the distance in every direction, most of them piled up with old furniture or figurines on shelves. There's a lot of stuff but it's pretty spread out between the rooms, leaving lots of empty floorspace. We spread out individually to see what's around, and I spot the door into the courtyard off to my right. I start heading over there, but I run smack into a glass wall because I'm so focused on what's behind it that I don't see it in time, which makes everybody (including me) laugh.
I look around and find the way around the wall, which happens to be a wheelchair ramp with old hotel brass railings and ugly red patterned carpet. So I run up it and around the wall and reach the glass door.
I look outside and see the courtyard more clearly. Against the wall to my left is the furniture and the small grassy space is otherwise overgrown. The blue couch I was so excited about has a big hole in it and is next to this hilariously 70s chair with a giant light blue and puke orange plaid pattern on it. My cousins have come over and we're laughing at how ugly the chair is.
Suddenly I hear barking and realize that there are three boxers (all of them brown and white) in the yard, two of them chained up next to the door and the third roaming free. My cousin opens the door and starts to step outside and the dogs go nuts. Just then, my grandmother finds us, telling us off for going so far back into the house. She goes out and gives the dogs chunks of steak to quiet them down.
And then I woke up, still wondering if that couch can be repaired.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Therapy Cat vs. Tornado Movie Shoot Hospital
Well, the past couple of weeks my nightmares have been getting a lot worse again, but at least I have lots of furry moral support.
Last night it was tornadoes. I was a passenger in my mom's car, driving down the highway towards the beach in the area where I grew up. My mom was driving us to a hospital where she was going for work and I had tagged along. As we drove, the cloudy sky darkened menacingly, the deep grey clouds heavy and wet. It began to pour. We were almost there- I could see across the flat, grassy fields to the hospital complex, its windows lit up against the blackened sky. My mom cursed at the rain. On the horizon I saw one of the cloudy masses dip down to connect with the ground, swirling chaotically.
We sped into the parking garage of the hospital, and then suddenly we were in a big, well-lit open lobby surrounded by glass windows. The place was pretty empty, which made sense to me, because I now knew we were there to help shoot a movie. We power-walked through a dim hallway into what looked like an office. A bunch of people with cameras and boom mics and who looked like actors were hanging around there. There was an old golden retriever and a French bulldog who was wearing a frilly pink collar, apparently also ready for a part in the movie.
As the crew was setting things up, I looked out of the window and watched the heavy rain streak down the glass against the dark night. I leaned over to look straight down, and saw a small tornado headed right for the building we were in, about to take out the structure below us. I started shouting and yelling for all the people to run for the door at the opposite end of the suddenly large room.
I grabbed my mom's hand and we got through the crowded doorway, running in the group away from that side of the floor. I was terrified. I was pretty sure we were going to die.
We ran past a long wall of windows that faced one of the other buildings in the complex. As I watched, still running, the building folded in on itself and crashed to the ground in a pile of rubble, sheetrock dust rising, showing its insides. It looked straight out of 9/11 footage. I was scared and upset. We reached, suddenly, a giant open area that looked like a multi-level shopping mall, packed with people. We skidded to a stop, trying to figure out which way to go- four hallways split off. But suddenly, a deathly fire glow came shooting out of three of them, and everyone in there started screaming. We turned into the fourth hallway, which looked like it was underground. It turned into the hallways in a Japanese subway station.
I began to have hope that we might escape. And then, quite suddenly, I wasn't running for my life anymore, but blinking up at the ceiling of my bedroom.
Over the past week, as the dreams have gotten especially bad, one of our cats has started sleeping right next to me, leaning on me as if to offer comfort, as if she knows I need a hug. Normally, she's quite an elusive character and sometimes you can go all day without seeing her. Also, if you get up to go to the bathroom, she'll jump up from the bed as if offended, tail-twitching, and stalk off to the other room for the rest of the night. But this past week, instead she stays by me. She'll wait until I come back and get under the covers again, and then snuggle up close as soon as I'm comfortable.
I know she's doing it on purpose. In college, one of my housemates was having a really hard time, and this cat was always in her room next to her when she was home. The cat would sleep on top of her at night. It helped a lot. Now I think she's offering me the same favor.
Living with my girlfriend helps me a lot, even though she's a hard sleeper, because just having someone next to me makes me feel less afraid when I wake up in the night. Having our cat right against me is like getting a hug just when I need it. As soon as I wake up, she'll turn to look at me with sleepy eyes, whether or not I've moved yet, as if to ask, "Are you okay?"
Thank God for kitties. <3
Last night it was tornadoes. I was a passenger in my mom's car, driving down the highway towards the beach in the area where I grew up. My mom was driving us to a hospital where she was going for work and I had tagged along. As we drove, the cloudy sky darkened menacingly, the deep grey clouds heavy and wet. It began to pour. We were almost there- I could see across the flat, grassy fields to the hospital complex, its windows lit up against the blackened sky. My mom cursed at the rain. On the horizon I saw one of the cloudy masses dip down to connect with the ground, swirling chaotically.
We sped into the parking garage of the hospital, and then suddenly we were in a big, well-lit open lobby surrounded by glass windows. The place was pretty empty, which made sense to me, because I now knew we were there to help shoot a movie. We power-walked through a dim hallway into what looked like an office. A bunch of people with cameras and boom mics and who looked like actors were hanging around there. There was an old golden retriever and a French bulldog who was wearing a frilly pink collar, apparently also ready for a part in the movie.
As the crew was setting things up, I looked out of the window and watched the heavy rain streak down the glass against the dark night. I leaned over to look straight down, and saw a small tornado headed right for the building we were in, about to take out the structure below us. I started shouting and yelling for all the people to run for the door at the opposite end of the suddenly large room.
I grabbed my mom's hand and we got through the crowded doorway, running in the group away from that side of the floor. I was terrified. I was pretty sure we were going to die.
We ran past a long wall of windows that faced one of the other buildings in the complex. As I watched, still running, the building folded in on itself and crashed to the ground in a pile of rubble, sheetrock dust rising, showing its insides. It looked straight out of 9/11 footage. I was scared and upset. We reached, suddenly, a giant open area that looked like a multi-level shopping mall, packed with people. We skidded to a stop, trying to figure out which way to go- four hallways split off. But suddenly, a deathly fire glow came shooting out of three of them, and everyone in there started screaming. We turned into the fourth hallway, which looked like it was underground. It turned into the hallways in a Japanese subway station.
I began to have hope that we might escape. And then, quite suddenly, I wasn't running for my life anymore, but blinking up at the ceiling of my bedroom.
Over the past week, as the dreams have gotten especially bad, one of our cats has started sleeping right next to me, leaning on me as if to offer comfort, as if she knows I need a hug. Normally, she's quite an elusive character and sometimes you can go all day without seeing her. Also, if you get up to go to the bathroom, she'll jump up from the bed as if offended, tail-twitching, and stalk off to the other room for the rest of the night. But this past week, instead she stays by me. She'll wait until I come back and get under the covers again, and then snuggle up close as soon as I'm comfortable.
I know she's doing it on purpose. In college, one of my housemates was having a really hard time, and this cat was always in her room next to her when she was home. The cat would sleep on top of her at night. It helped a lot. Now I think she's offering me the same favor.
Living with my girlfriend helps me a lot, even though she's a hard sleeper, because just having someone next to me makes me feel less afraid when I wake up in the night. Having our cat right against me is like getting a hug just when I need it. As soon as I wake up, she'll turn to look at me with sleepy eyes, whether or not I've moved yet, as if to ask, "Are you okay?"
Thank God for kitties. <3
Friday, February 4, 2011
Memorable Hallucinations Caused By Narcolepsy
I recently typed up a couple of my more interesting hallucinations in sort-of story format and figured it would be helpful to post them here. I remember doing a flurry of internet research before I was diagnosed, trying to find out if what I was experiencing could be termed "hallucinations", and literally all I could find were schizophrenia-related ones. Because of the lack of information on hallucinations (or, rather, anything) caused by Narcolepsy, I began to be worried I might have schizophrenia. More proof that self-diagnosis via the internet is a bad idea sometimes. XD
So, here are a couple of mine, in the hopes that the next generation of people looking for this information might actually find something useful.
----------------------
I am in between, floating, when it happens.
It takes me completely off guard when it does. After all, all I was doing was lying perfectly still, waiting- letting my thoughts wander, watching faint images. The beginning of a dream had begun to form; something light-hearted about looking up at the sun from underwater, and a ghostly flying horse. Though my dream was beginning all on its own, I was still very involved in the process of trying to let go of my awareness. Prying my consciousness away from its moorings. This took a lot of effort for me and I had no inkling that this strange in-between state was unnatural.
I was focused on being completely relaxed and still. Calm--
Suddenly, from behind my head a hand shoots out, the fingers clamping down over my mouth, stifling my scream before it can begin. Pure terror and adrenaline shoot through me, putting me into instant panic. I struggle with everything I've got, desperate to escape. But the hand is extremely solid, strong and real; it doesn't so much as twitch or tighten, almost as if it was made of rock.
It is in that instant that I realize that every muscle in my body is frozen. I am struggling as hard as I can and nothing is moving. I'm helpless. I try harder, desperation growing--
My eyes open on my dark bedroom. Thoroughly freaked out, I jump up into a sitting position and whirl to face the wall. There is no one there. No hand. And there is not enough space for a whole human being to fit. I'm shaking as I reach for my lamp. I am alone after all.
------------------------
In the dream, I'm eating brownies. The bites are chewy and sweet and I can feel them sticking to my teeth and gums. They're so chocolatey and delicious that I can't stop eating them, even though my teeth begin to hurt. As I chew one piece, I encounter something hard all of a sudden. I pull it out of my mouth to see what it is. My hands are sticky and covered in chocolate.
As I examine my find, I realize it is a tooth. I feel my teeth with my tongue and sure enough, there is a space where it was. In real life this would have freaked me out, but in my dream I think it's cool. I can feel the space and my tongue is exploring the crevices of it. The feeling is fascinating.
Experimentally, I begin pushing on other teeth with my tongue, and several more come loose, still attached only by a vein each. I push them and play with them with my tongue, feeling the craggy surface of the bottom of each tooth. I push too hard and the veins begin to break, loosing the teeth into my mouth. I feel pain at the moment each breaks. Suddenly I remember that these are my adult teeth and no more will grow in. I begin to panic, wondering how much damage I've done, as my mouth feels literally filled with loose teeth. Moving my mouth causes a grating sound inside my head from all the loose teeth rubbing against each other.
My mouth hurts badly now and tastes of blood. I run over to a round mirror on the wall and open my mouth. A handful of teeth fall out and rattle as they land in the sink. The sink, my mouth and my hands are thick with blood, and it runs down my face.
And then I am awake, looking at the ceiling of my bedroom, with a lingering pain and the remembrance of the taste of blood in my mouth. The first thing I do is reach up to feel my teeth with my hand. All of them are still there. I go look in the mirror right away, just to make sure.
So, here are a couple of mine, in the hopes that the next generation of people looking for this information might actually find something useful.
----------------------
I am in between, floating, when it happens.
It takes me completely off guard when it does. After all, all I was doing was lying perfectly still, waiting- letting my thoughts wander, watching faint images. The beginning of a dream had begun to form; something light-hearted about looking up at the sun from underwater, and a ghostly flying horse. Though my dream was beginning all on its own, I was still very involved in the process of trying to let go of my awareness. Prying my consciousness away from its moorings. This took a lot of effort for me and I had no inkling that this strange in-between state was unnatural.
I was focused on being completely relaxed and still. Calm--
Suddenly, from behind my head a hand shoots out, the fingers clamping down over my mouth, stifling my scream before it can begin. Pure terror and adrenaline shoot through me, putting me into instant panic. I struggle with everything I've got, desperate to escape. But the hand is extremely solid, strong and real; it doesn't so much as twitch or tighten, almost as if it was made of rock.
It is in that instant that I realize that every muscle in my body is frozen. I am struggling as hard as I can and nothing is moving. I'm helpless. I try harder, desperation growing--
My eyes open on my dark bedroom. Thoroughly freaked out, I jump up into a sitting position and whirl to face the wall. There is no one there. No hand. And there is not enough space for a whole human being to fit. I'm shaking as I reach for my lamp. I am alone after all.
------------------------
In the dream, I'm eating brownies. The bites are chewy and sweet and I can feel them sticking to my teeth and gums. They're so chocolatey and delicious that I can't stop eating them, even though my teeth begin to hurt. As I chew one piece, I encounter something hard all of a sudden. I pull it out of my mouth to see what it is. My hands are sticky and covered in chocolate.
As I examine my find, I realize it is a tooth. I feel my teeth with my tongue and sure enough, there is a space where it was. In real life this would have freaked me out, but in my dream I think it's cool. I can feel the space and my tongue is exploring the crevices of it. The feeling is fascinating.
Experimentally, I begin pushing on other teeth with my tongue, and several more come loose, still attached only by a vein each. I push them and play with them with my tongue, feeling the craggy surface of the bottom of each tooth. I push too hard and the veins begin to break, loosing the teeth into my mouth. I feel pain at the moment each breaks. Suddenly I remember that these are my adult teeth and no more will grow in. I begin to panic, wondering how much damage I've done, as my mouth feels literally filled with loose teeth. Moving my mouth causes a grating sound inside my head from all the loose teeth rubbing against each other.
My mouth hurts badly now and tastes of blood. I run over to a round mirror on the wall and open my mouth. A handful of teeth fall out and rattle as they land in the sink. The sink, my mouth and my hands are thick with blood, and it runs down my face.
And then I am awake, looking at the ceiling of my bedroom, with a lingering pain and the remembrance of the taste of blood in my mouth. The first thing I do is reach up to feel my teeth with my hand. All of them are still there. I go look in the mirror right away, just to make sure.
Friday, January 14, 2011
My Narcolepsy Themed Art
Or, "Wolfies and Demons". :D
I got a comment from a fellow artist requesting that I post some art, and as I have been halfway planning to do this for some time, I figure, why not now? A lot of my art is quite relevant to this blog, as I'm constantly drawing things about my dreams and daily experiences with Narcolepsy, and those are the pieces I'm posting here. I find expressing the insanity and frustrations of my illness is a great way to cope. Also, the more humorously I express my feelings, the better I come to feel about the entire thing.
One thing that you have to know before you look at my art is that I'm an anthro or "furry" artist. That means I draw very character-driven art, and that my characters are half-human, half-animals. Furry art is pretty different from the mainstream, so I feel I have to explain it a little. Most furry artists have a "fursona," or furry character that represents themselves, and I am no exception. I almost always draw myself as a wolf person or werewolf (hence my blog pseudonym, "Wolfie"). My art is also quite cartoony, as per furry tradition, though not always as I also have quite a bit of classical training.
Also, you will see the signature along the bottom of each piece is blocked out. This is purely protective of my identity as I always put my real name there after scanning in my work. However, I want this blog to remain anonymous and separate from my other online identities for privacy reasons.
So, without further ado!
About the meds:
These two are both about Xyrem, and feeling like a nutcase for being on something so strong. I'm glad that these don't apply anymore, since I'm happy for now with just the Remeron.
About the Demon:
In addition to having a little wolf character who represents me, I also have a frightening demonic character who represents Narcolepsy itself. I heard a song once that had the line "like demons playing movies in my head" or something similar, and though I still can't find the song again, it made a big impression on me. I think that line is the best description I've found of what I experience when my brain throws dream/nightmare/hallucinations at me. And so, this is the demon who plays movies in my head.
Here's one of my more humorous drawings, of the demon kicking me in the butt. XD
In addition to frightening nightmares, I also have some pretty sweet vivid dreams that I like, so in this cg painting I was trying to express the interplay between the good dreams and bad. The white wolf-creature is a personification of the good things about my dreams, and is battling the nightmare-demon.
I've also been making dreamcatchers for a very long time (early attempts at preventative measures, lol), and this one I made with the above painting in mind:
The inner circle is about good dreams, and includes perfect weaving, pretty little trinkets (including a bell to represent sound), and shiny white ribbon. The outer circle is about nightmares, with uneven weaving and black leather, also interwoven with strange little objects. The hanging part incorporates both dirty bones and pristine white fluffy feathers, to show the intertwining of beautiful and disturbing that regularly shows up in my dreams.
Images From Actual Dreams I've Had:
I saw this dreamcatcher hanging in a room (well, my bedroom, actually) that was dripping with pipes covered in moss. When I woke up I jotted down the design, then actually made it to the best of my ability.
I dream about human skeletons a lot, which is unfortunate because I have a silly phobia of them. I don't know if the phobia of skeleton images came before or after dreaming about stumbling across them in my dreams, but weirdly, they seem to be everywhere in my dreamscapes. Whatever it means, I was excited to take an anatomy class a year or two ago and learn how to draw them so that I could a) attempt to overcome my fear and b) actually record some images from dreams that included them.
This piece is a combination of all the hallucinations I could remember having in high school in my old bedroom. It's actually a pretty clear pen drawing, but I like this blurry photograph of it more- it makes it more disturbing. :D And thus gives it more the feel that I wanted.
I also have some really cool beautiful dreams, from which single images have stood out so much that I've felt inspired.
The Baku:
And lastly, I recently discovered this awesome Japanese folklore creature that eats nightmares. I painted him on a piece of wood because I thought he was really cool, and, let's face it, I need all the help I can get, right? XD
The verse is from a song ("Darkness, Darkness" by Solas) and reads:
Darkness, darkness, be my pillow
Take my hand and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep
And so, there you are. I have other pieces, but I figure this is long enough as it is. I'm sure there will be more later.
I got a comment from a fellow artist requesting that I post some art, and as I have been halfway planning to do this for some time, I figure, why not now? A lot of my art is quite relevant to this blog, as I'm constantly drawing things about my dreams and daily experiences with Narcolepsy, and those are the pieces I'm posting here. I find expressing the insanity and frustrations of my illness is a great way to cope. Also, the more humorously I express my feelings, the better I come to feel about the entire thing.
One thing that you have to know before you look at my art is that I'm an anthro or "furry" artist. That means I draw very character-driven art, and that my characters are half-human, half-animals. Furry art is pretty different from the mainstream, so I feel I have to explain it a little. Most furry artists have a "fursona," or furry character that represents themselves, and I am no exception. I almost always draw myself as a wolf person or werewolf (hence my blog pseudonym, "Wolfie"). My art is also quite cartoony, as per furry tradition, though not always as I also have quite a bit of classical training.
Also, you will see the signature along the bottom of each piece is blocked out. This is purely protective of my identity as I always put my real name there after scanning in my work. However, I want this blog to remain anonymous and separate from my other online identities for privacy reasons.
So, without further ado!
About the meds:
These two are both about Xyrem, and feeling like a nutcase for being on something so strong. I'm glad that these don't apply anymore, since I'm happy for now with just the Remeron.
About the Demon:
In addition to having a little wolf character who represents me, I also have a frightening demonic character who represents Narcolepsy itself. I heard a song once that had the line "like demons playing movies in my head" or something similar, and though I still can't find the song again, it made a big impression on me. I think that line is the best description I've found of what I experience when my brain throws dream/nightmare/hallucinations at me. And so, this is the demon who plays movies in my head.
Here's one of my more humorous drawings, of the demon kicking me in the butt. XD
In addition to frightening nightmares, I also have some pretty sweet vivid dreams that I like, so in this cg painting I was trying to express the interplay between the good dreams and bad. The white wolf-creature is a personification of the good things about my dreams, and is battling the nightmare-demon.
I've also been making dreamcatchers for a very long time (early attempts at preventative measures, lol), and this one I made with the above painting in mind:
The inner circle is about good dreams, and includes perfect weaving, pretty little trinkets (including a bell to represent sound), and shiny white ribbon. The outer circle is about nightmares, with uneven weaving and black leather, also interwoven with strange little objects. The hanging part incorporates both dirty bones and pristine white fluffy feathers, to show the intertwining of beautiful and disturbing that regularly shows up in my dreams.
Images From Actual Dreams I've Had:
I saw this dreamcatcher hanging in a room (well, my bedroom, actually) that was dripping with pipes covered in moss. When I woke up I jotted down the design, then actually made it to the best of my ability.
I dream about human skeletons a lot, which is unfortunate because I have a silly phobia of them. I don't know if the phobia of skeleton images came before or after dreaming about stumbling across them in my dreams, but weirdly, they seem to be everywhere in my dreamscapes. Whatever it means, I was excited to take an anatomy class a year or two ago and learn how to draw them so that I could a) attempt to overcome my fear and b) actually record some images from dreams that included them.
This piece is a combination of all the hallucinations I could remember having in high school in my old bedroom. It's actually a pretty clear pen drawing, but I like this blurry photograph of it more- it makes it more disturbing. :D And thus gives it more the feel that I wanted.
I also have some really cool beautiful dreams, from which single images have stood out so much that I've felt inspired.
The Baku:
And lastly, I recently discovered this awesome Japanese folklore creature that eats nightmares. I painted him on a piece of wood because I thought he was really cool, and, let's face it, I need all the help I can get, right? XD
The verse is from a song ("Darkness, Darkness" by Solas) and reads:
Darkness, darkness, be my pillow
Take my hand and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep
And so, there you are. I have other pieces, but I figure this is long enough as it is. I'm sure there will be more later.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Because You Asked...
Now I think it's time that I give y'all an update on my health, since (you know) that's the purpose of this blog, lol :P. And a lot has changed since my long hiatus began.
So, before we moved in August (or, indeed, even knew we would be moving so soon), I went to a new doctor on the outskirts of Chicago. I picked her, for the most part, because she is female and I have a long history of older, male doctors who I've had pretty serious communication issues with. That stipulation didn't give me a lot of neurologists within two hours to choose from, and she was the only one who seemed to have Narcolepsy on her resume. Indeed, she did seem to listen to me and understood my need to get off of Xyrem. She was a little skeptical that I would be alright without trying stimulants, but agreed I should get off of Xyrem first and see how it went. So she told me I could just stop taking it, and that it would wear off pretty fast, which seemed a little contradictory to what I've heard. We agreed I should stay on Remeron because of my family and personal history of depression and the fact that it should aid my sleep as well.
So I left the appointment pretty happy with what I'd learned, but not terribly attached to this particular neurologist. Which is probably good, now that I live a day's drive from there anyway.
I got off of Xyrem several days after the appointment, and I was really glad that I did. Even now that I'm not really sleeping I don't regret it. My stomach was instantly doing a happy victory dance. I could immediately eat breakfast again, not having to wait until the nausea wore off late in the morning before putting anything in there. I could eat anything (gluten-free/soy-free) that I wanted, whenever I wanted. I could feel hunger again before getting really fuzzy headed or dizzy. In short it is awesome. I can eat again!!!!!!
In two months I went from ten pounds underweight (with my hip bones prominent and ribs visible) to having a little bit of a tummy and the proper curves. I went from a size 2 to a size 6. It's not the numbers that I care about so much though- it's the fact that I feel healthy again. My body feels like it actually has some substance to it. I feel like I'm the right weight now, and it's been years since I felt this good physically. I have to be careful, now, though- I don't want to keep on climbing until it's unhealthy, and that takes some work on my part because increased appetite is a side effect of Remeron that I definitely feel. I'm careful to control how much I eat at once and I limit how much snacking I'm allowed to do between meals. I actually usually just eat one large meal a day because with our healthy, vegetable-rich diet, more than that is too much. I eat a small breakfast, a large lunch, and a snack for dinner. I'm finding that this works really well for me and my girlfriend, too.
So, that's the good news. The bad news is that I'm not sleeping- as you might expect. I used to write down my dreams, but now I have too many to bother. The other day I jerked awake, full of terror at 2 AM, because I heard an excruciatingly loud and frightened scream right next to my ear. I haven't had much in the way of sleep paralysis, which is good if mysterious. Mostly it's just been the dreams. I've had tornado dreams, dog training dreams, beautiful scenery dreams, Harry Potter meets Stargate Atlantis dreams, car crash dreams, even a dream in which I was bicycling along a partially submerged wall through a field of swimming pools. It goes on and on and I wake up to find that it's still 3 something. I go back under, and then it's maybe 4 something. Eventually at like 7 I give up, which has me ready for bed the next night at about 8. I've mostly been sleeping in long naps on the couch in the mid-afternoon with my cat asleep on my stomach, and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason I'm (more or less) conscious the rest of the time.
When we had just moved I was walking the dogs at least once during the day while my fiancee is teaching, and sometimes twice, but as I've been steadily going down in energy level I might be able to do it once if I'm lucky. I'm also pretty frustrated at the fact that I have so much art I want to do but it happens slowly and in short stretches if at all. This is even more maddening because we're so low on money and there isn't anything I can do to contribute directly. The real world is just too demanding for me to keep up. We're doing fine because we have two sets of parents helping us in various ways. It should be better next year when my girlfriend is working full time at the school rather than the current part time (we have reason to hope), but for now we run out of our own funds before the month is out and have no way of saving up for the future. It's hard for me to watch that knowing that I can't earn any extra; I can barely take care of the chores that I enjoy doing and keep the place reasonably clean. I know that my most important job is taking care of the family (two cats, two dogs and the girl) and that even on my worst days I'm a huge help in that regard. I try to remember that and to know that I'm contributing a lot just by existing (our especially needy cat thinks so, too).
But I have to say my symptoms aren't as bad as they used to be in high school before I was diagnosed. I think the Remeron is definitely part of it, but also it's the lack of stress in my life now- the lack of unreasonable expectations. I do what I physically can and for once, it's enough. In fact, it's appreciated greatly by everybody. And to be honest I'm not in any hurry to try adding other meds. My stomach has in some way rejected everything else I've tried, including other antidepressants, Nuvigil, Provigil, and Ritalin. And I like my new-found ability to eat food, thank you very much. :D
So, before we moved in August (or, indeed, even knew we would be moving so soon), I went to a new doctor on the outskirts of Chicago. I picked her, for the most part, because she is female and I have a long history of older, male doctors who I've had pretty serious communication issues with. That stipulation didn't give me a lot of neurologists within two hours to choose from, and she was the only one who seemed to have Narcolepsy on her resume. Indeed, she did seem to listen to me and understood my need to get off of Xyrem. She was a little skeptical that I would be alright without trying stimulants, but agreed I should get off of Xyrem first and see how it went. So she told me I could just stop taking it, and that it would wear off pretty fast, which seemed a little contradictory to what I've heard. We agreed I should stay on Remeron because of my family and personal history of depression and the fact that it should aid my sleep as well.
So I left the appointment pretty happy with what I'd learned, but not terribly attached to this particular neurologist. Which is probably good, now that I live a day's drive from there anyway.
I got off of Xyrem several days after the appointment, and I was really glad that I did. Even now that I'm not really sleeping I don't regret it. My stomach was instantly doing a happy victory dance. I could immediately eat breakfast again, not having to wait until the nausea wore off late in the morning before putting anything in there. I could eat anything (gluten-free/soy-free) that I wanted, whenever I wanted. I could feel hunger again before getting really fuzzy headed or dizzy. In short it is awesome. I can eat again!!!!!!
In two months I went from ten pounds underweight (with my hip bones prominent and ribs visible) to having a little bit of a tummy and the proper curves. I went from a size 2 to a size 6. It's not the numbers that I care about so much though- it's the fact that I feel healthy again. My body feels like it actually has some substance to it. I feel like I'm the right weight now, and it's been years since I felt this good physically. I have to be careful, now, though- I don't want to keep on climbing until it's unhealthy, and that takes some work on my part because increased appetite is a side effect of Remeron that I definitely feel. I'm careful to control how much I eat at once and I limit how much snacking I'm allowed to do between meals. I actually usually just eat one large meal a day because with our healthy, vegetable-rich diet, more than that is too much. I eat a small breakfast, a large lunch, and a snack for dinner. I'm finding that this works really well for me and my girlfriend, too.
So, that's the good news. The bad news is that I'm not sleeping- as you might expect. I used to write down my dreams, but now I have too many to bother. The other day I jerked awake, full of terror at 2 AM, because I heard an excruciatingly loud and frightened scream right next to my ear. I haven't had much in the way of sleep paralysis, which is good if mysterious. Mostly it's just been the dreams. I've had tornado dreams, dog training dreams, beautiful scenery dreams, Harry Potter meets Stargate Atlantis dreams, car crash dreams, even a dream in which I was bicycling along a partially submerged wall through a field of swimming pools. It goes on and on and I wake up to find that it's still 3 something. I go back under, and then it's maybe 4 something. Eventually at like 7 I give up, which has me ready for bed the next night at about 8. I've mostly been sleeping in long naps on the couch in the mid-afternoon with my cat asleep on my stomach, and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason I'm (more or less) conscious the rest of the time.
When we had just moved I was walking the dogs at least once during the day while my fiancee is teaching, and sometimes twice, but as I've been steadily going down in energy level I might be able to do it once if I'm lucky. I'm also pretty frustrated at the fact that I have so much art I want to do but it happens slowly and in short stretches if at all. This is even more maddening because we're so low on money and there isn't anything I can do to contribute directly. The real world is just too demanding for me to keep up. We're doing fine because we have two sets of parents helping us in various ways. It should be better next year when my girlfriend is working full time at the school rather than the current part time (we have reason to hope), but for now we run out of our own funds before the month is out and have no way of saving up for the future. It's hard for me to watch that knowing that I can't earn any extra; I can barely take care of the chores that I enjoy doing and keep the place reasonably clean. I know that my most important job is taking care of the family (two cats, two dogs and the girl) and that even on my worst days I'm a huge help in that regard. I try to remember that and to know that I'm contributing a lot just by existing (our especially needy cat thinks so, too).
But I have to say my symptoms aren't as bad as they used to be in high school before I was diagnosed. I think the Remeron is definitely part of it, but also it's the lack of stress in my life now- the lack of unreasonable expectations. I do what I physically can and for once, it's enough. In fact, it's appreciated greatly by everybody. And to be honest I'm not in any hurry to try adding other meds. My stomach has in some way rejected everything else I've tried, including other antidepressants, Nuvigil, Provigil, and Ritalin. And I like my new-found ability to eat food, thank you very much. :D
Monday, June 28, 2010
Creepy Nights
I've officially started having nightmares again... I think it's three nights in a row now. At least there has only been one each night so far. I can remember a time when it was every night, all night, and I'm hoping it won't come to that.
I was in one of the upstairs bedrooms of where I'm living now, and the layout was more or less accurate (not a good sign). I couldn't sleep, so I got up and was walking around the room. I started to get scared because the other bedroom (on the other side of the bathroom) was pitch black and I kept hearing creepy noises. Eventually I went in the bathroom to peer in the other room, and saw minotaurs and a werewolf with glowing red eyes, beckoning me. I ran back into our room, totally freaked out. The creatures followed me and stood in the bathroom, staring. I wanted my girlfriend to wake up and reassure me, but she was so asleep that shaking her didn't work.
In another, I was in the same upstairs, only our bedroom was huge- three or four times the size it really is- so that my lamp didn't even begin to reach the corners. Again, I had gotten up to go to the bathroom. I was extremely creeped out because I kept seeing twisted monsters and rotting dead things in the corners, all staring at me. I figured I was hallucinating, so I went into the bathroom (now the one from our college apartment) and started splashing water on my face. It didn't really help- I was still seeing creepy things twitching and moving around every time I passed a patch of darkness. So I hurried back to bed, with my eyelids trying to close the whole way. I sat up in bed and just waited, and turned on the overhead light. After awhile my girlfriend woke up and I talked to her for a minute. Then she got up and started moving around and put on some really creepy music. I asked her to turn it off because it was making me more freaked out, but she didn't seem to hear me. Then our other college roommate was there, talking about how awesome the music was (which is funny, because she hates creepy music ten times more than I do). Eventually they took it downstairs and I tried to go back to sleep, but I could still hear the music a little because the room suddenly had a balcony over the living room.
And then last night it was tornados. For some reason I've always had lots of tornado dreams. This time I was at my grandparents' house, only of course it was suddenly three stories instead of one and had sliding glass doors, because that makes sense, and there were stairs everywhere. I basically spent the entire dream trying to corral our two dogs into a safe downstairs bedroom as multiple tornados came within inches of various parts of the house without actually doing anything. The dogs were constantly getting away from me and ending up in the backyard, or next to windows with a tornado on the other side of them, or dancing circles around me as I got more and more exhausted trying to capture them. Or the room I was taking them would suddenly sprout glass doors or giant windows, and I would get really scared that it wasn't safe, and suddenly there would be three tornados outside coming closer. Meanwhile my grandparents and girlfriend were going on like we weren't all about to be torn to pieces, standing around chatting or making lunch, lol.
I was in one of the upstairs bedrooms of where I'm living now, and the layout was more or less accurate (not a good sign). I couldn't sleep, so I got up and was walking around the room. I started to get scared because the other bedroom (on the other side of the bathroom) was pitch black and I kept hearing creepy noises. Eventually I went in the bathroom to peer in the other room, and saw minotaurs and a werewolf with glowing red eyes, beckoning me. I ran back into our room, totally freaked out. The creatures followed me and stood in the bathroom, staring. I wanted my girlfriend to wake up and reassure me, but she was so asleep that shaking her didn't work.
In another, I was in the same upstairs, only our bedroom was huge- three or four times the size it really is- so that my lamp didn't even begin to reach the corners. Again, I had gotten up to go to the bathroom. I was extremely creeped out because I kept seeing twisted monsters and rotting dead things in the corners, all staring at me. I figured I was hallucinating, so I went into the bathroom (now the one from our college apartment) and started splashing water on my face. It didn't really help- I was still seeing creepy things twitching and moving around every time I passed a patch of darkness. So I hurried back to bed, with my eyelids trying to close the whole way. I sat up in bed and just waited, and turned on the overhead light. After awhile my girlfriend woke up and I talked to her for a minute. Then she got up and started moving around and put on some really creepy music. I asked her to turn it off because it was making me more freaked out, but she didn't seem to hear me. Then our other college roommate was there, talking about how awesome the music was (which is funny, because she hates creepy music ten times more than I do). Eventually they took it downstairs and I tried to go back to sleep, but I could still hear the music a little because the room suddenly had a balcony over the living room.
And then last night it was tornados. For some reason I've always had lots of tornado dreams. This time I was at my grandparents' house, only of course it was suddenly three stories instead of one and had sliding glass doors, because that makes sense, and there were stairs everywhere. I basically spent the entire dream trying to corral our two dogs into a safe downstairs bedroom as multiple tornados came within inches of various parts of the house without actually doing anything. The dogs were constantly getting away from me and ending up in the backyard, or next to windows with a tornado on the other side of them, or dancing circles around me as I got more and more exhausted trying to capture them. Or the room I was taking them would suddenly sprout glass doors or giant windows, and I would get really scared that it wasn't safe, and suddenly there would be three tornados outside coming closer. Meanwhile my grandparents and girlfriend were going on like we weren't all about to be torn to pieces, standing around chatting or making lunch, lol.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Japanese Deli Angel Wings Movie Date
Last night I had a pretty vivid but mixed-up dream. It started out that I was in some kind of deli that was part of a college and I was sitting at a table by myself, waiting for my mom to come back with her food (I wasn't eating there). As I was sitting there, I was observing the other people interacting at the other tables. It was like a scene from my hometown because of the diversity- I was one of the only white people there. One little girl saw me eavesdropping and grinned at me, and I grinned back. Then there was a lot of bustle right next to my table- several families were passing it to get to the counter- and I overheard them speaking in Japanese even though most of them weren't Japanese. When one of them bumped me on accident I said "excuse me" to them in polite Japanese without thinking. One of the women started asking me something and we had a brief conversation about how I could speak it. After that, they moved away, and I spotted someone I knew in elementary school who I hadn't spoken to in a long time, so I went over and sat down at her table.
She told me at length about what she was doing on her computer and complained about how her professors kept trying to get her to turn it into a career when she was pretty sure she didn't want to do whatever it was for a living, and we had a good heart-to-heart about life. After that, I think she took me to a lab to show me what she was working on, and she turned into a different friend I had in high school, and her project turned out to be this incredibly cool angel costume that had mechanical wings you could actually use. It was really really cool. It had chain mail and armor that you used to secure it to yourself. After that I think we went to see a movie (now with the elementary friend again), and the movie got a little jumbled up with the rest of the dream. Who I was kept switching around and sometimes I was in it and sometimes commenting on it. The movie was about a girl (A) falling in love with another girl (B). When A tells B, B freaks out and runs away and gets engaged to a guy who happens to ask her at that exact time, and it ends with A hoping B will change her mind. The me who was watching it was pretty disappointed in the ending because it seemed like it was going to work out and be happy and then it turned depressing. At the same time, though, I was happy about the way the movie portrayed A, as a completely normal girl who happened to not be straight.
That was about when I woke up, feeling confused and tired and wondering what on earth it all means.
She told me at length about what she was doing on her computer and complained about how her professors kept trying to get her to turn it into a career when she was pretty sure she didn't want to do whatever it was for a living, and we had a good heart-to-heart about life. After that, I think she took me to a lab to show me what she was working on, and she turned into a different friend I had in high school, and her project turned out to be this incredibly cool angel costume that had mechanical wings you could actually use. It was really really cool. It had chain mail and armor that you used to secure it to yourself. After that I think we went to see a movie (now with the elementary friend again), and the movie got a little jumbled up with the rest of the dream. Who I was kept switching around and sometimes I was in it and sometimes commenting on it. The movie was about a girl (A) falling in love with another girl (B). When A tells B, B freaks out and runs away and gets engaged to a guy who happens to ask her at that exact time, and it ends with A hoping B will change her mind. The me who was watching it was pretty disappointed in the ending because it seemed like it was going to work out and be happy and then it turned depressing. At the same time, though, I was happy about the way the movie portrayed A, as a completely normal girl who happened to not be straight.
That was about when I woke up, feeling confused and tired and wondering what on earth it all means.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Corpse Ghost New Apartment Foster Family
It's been awhile since the last time I didn't have some sort of vivid dream interrupting my sleep, but last night was crazy.
The first one was a nightmare. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before now that dead bodies, especially rotting ones, seriously freak me out- it's like some bizarre phobia I have. In this dream I was still living with my parents, indefinitely, with no hope of moving out, which was an awful feeling I had for the year and a half after college. That feeling made the dream that much worse. So my parents had just moved into a different new house and I had come with them. It was a bit of an improvement- there was more space for me and my room had better lighting. Everything was kind of weird though. The walls were all painted red and had East Asian style details- including a really cool dragon statue attached to the wall between two rooms. The layout was very confusing and didn't make sense, so I kept getting lost even though it was a small house. In the middle of it there was a tiny courtyard with a young tree and a small patch of grass where my dachshund could do his business. At first I really like it out there- a small enclosed bit of the outdoors where I could be outside without being in public. I started spending more and more time out there and thinking this house really wasn't so bad. That's when the visions started- it felt exactly how it does when I'm hallucinating while asleep (which I'm sure I was), only inside the dream it would happen when I was awake and I would have to stop and wait for it to finish before I could see anything again. The flashes of images would come as I entered the courtyard. I started to get really scared because I realized a ghost was sending me memories and I suspected there was a body buried in the courtyard. The patch of grassy area was exactly the right size, and my dog liked to sniff it a lot- it was hard to get him to leave. This totally freaked me out because of my phobia. I started to avoid the courtyard and take my dog to a park instead. This worked for awhile until he started to dig tunnels. I would turn my back for a second and he would disappear underground and it would take yelling to get him to come back out. It's kind of hilarious because the tunnels were perfectly round, as if made by a giant worm, even though it was a dog supposedly digging them. Meanwhile, as the visions started getting stronger, my fears were confirmed- the ghost wanted me to dig up the body so that its murderer could be found, and I kept telling it that I couldn't because I was terrified. It started to get angrier and angrier and my terror got overpowering. I was afraid to let the dog go anywhere near the courtyard now that he was digging so much. It was getting harder to come up with excuses to my parents and they started to wonder what was going on. The dream ended with me trying to get ready to leave to go somewhere with my parents while having a vision showing me the rotting bones while I kept having to run outside and grab my dog because he had somehow escaped out there and was digging. I started to panic and that woke me up.
In the next dream I had, my girlfriend and I had just reached our new apartment with all of our stuff- in the dream we didn't have dogs- and were figuring out where to put our furniture. Our apartment had one room and was a really strange layout- there was a fireplace and chimney in the middle, and so many cabinets on the walls it was hard to figure out where to put furniture. We were really happy to be there and enjoying figuring it out though. I looked out the window at the view- it was really high up over a city at night- and it was amazing so I walked over to the sliding glass doors to see how the porch was. It was a tiny porch with really flimsy-looking railing. I made the mistake of looking down over it to discover we were about 100 floors up. I got serious vertigo and a stab of fear. That's what woke me up.
The last dream was interesting- I was a teenage boy (lol) who was meeting his foster parents for the first time. They were a really nice couple with a very strange house and really cool furniture. The man was big and gangly and bald, and really sweet. His wife was short and incredibly smart and had flowing reddish-brown hair. They were very welcoming and my thoughts (as the kid) were that this really might not be so bad. The house was really weird- there were windows (without glass) in the inside walls, including my bedroom, so even if I locked the door I didn't really have privacy- but neither did anybody else. The bathrooms were both really bizarre; one of them had a giant marble tub raised up in it, with a toilet literally hidden underneath a lid next to it. The other bathroom had two toilets and two sinks randomly without stalls or anything- just in the middle of the room. The main room of the house had random stairs everywhere and was a crazy shape- the walls were at weird angles and were varying sizes. The place was filled with ornately carved furniture from all over the world. I spent awhile admiring everything. There was a glass case full of shiny little statues and a mobile made of origami cranes, several really old-looking round tables, and tons of chairs (no two were the same). I ate dinner with my new parents and several of their relatives and then went to bed watching the tv in my bedroom. That's when I woke up. What a night.
The first one was a nightmare. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before now that dead bodies, especially rotting ones, seriously freak me out- it's like some bizarre phobia I have. In this dream I was still living with my parents, indefinitely, with no hope of moving out, which was an awful feeling I had for the year and a half after college. That feeling made the dream that much worse. So my parents had just moved into a different new house and I had come with them. It was a bit of an improvement- there was more space for me and my room had better lighting. Everything was kind of weird though. The walls were all painted red and had East Asian style details- including a really cool dragon statue attached to the wall between two rooms. The layout was very confusing and didn't make sense, so I kept getting lost even though it was a small house. In the middle of it there was a tiny courtyard with a young tree and a small patch of grass where my dachshund could do his business. At first I really like it out there- a small enclosed bit of the outdoors where I could be outside without being in public. I started spending more and more time out there and thinking this house really wasn't so bad. That's when the visions started- it felt exactly how it does when I'm hallucinating while asleep (which I'm sure I was), only inside the dream it would happen when I was awake and I would have to stop and wait for it to finish before I could see anything again. The flashes of images would come as I entered the courtyard. I started to get really scared because I realized a ghost was sending me memories and I suspected there was a body buried in the courtyard. The patch of grassy area was exactly the right size, and my dog liked to sniff it a lot- it was hard to get him to leave. This totally freaked me out because of my phobia. I started to avoid the courtyard and take my dog to a park instead. This worked for awhile until he started to dig tunnels. I would turn my back for a second and he would disappear underground and it would take yelling to get him to come back out. It's kind of hilarious because the tunnels were perfectly round, as if made by a giant worm, even though it was a dog supposedly digging them. Meanwhile, as the visions started getting stronger, my fears were confirmed- the ghost wanted me to dig up the body so that its murderer could be found, and I kept telling it that I couldn't because I was terrified. It started to get angrier and angrier and my terror got overpowering. I was afraid to let the dog go anywhere near the courtyard now that he was digging so much. It was getting harder to come up with excuses to my parents and they started to wonder what was going on. The dream ended with me trying to get ready to leave to go somewhere with my parents while having a vision showing me the rotting bones while I kept having to run outside and grab my dog because he had somehow escaped out there and was digging. I started to panic and that woke me up.
In the next dream I had, my girlfriend and I had just reached our new apartment with all of our stuff- in the dream we didn't have dogs- and were figuring out where to put our furniture. Our apartment had one room and was a really strange layout- there was a fireplace and chimney in the middle, and so many cabinets on the walls it was hard to figure out where to put furniture. We were really happy to be there and enjoying figuring it out though. I looked out the window at the view- it was really high up over a city at night- and it was amazing so I walked over to the sliding glass doors to see how the porch was. It was a tiny porch with really flimsy-looking railing. I made the mistake of looking down over it to discover we were about 100 floors up. I got serious vertigo and a stab of fear. That's what woke me up.
The last dream was interesting- I was a teenage boy (lol) who was meeting his foster parents for the first time. They were a really nice couple with a very strange house and really cool furniture. The man was big and gangly and bald, and really sweet. His wife was short and incredibly smart and had flowing reddish-brown hair. They were very welcoming and my thoughts (as the kid) were that this really might not be so bad. The house was really weird- there were windows (without glass) in the inside walls, including my bedroom, so even if I locked the door I didn't really have privacy- but neither did anybody else. The bathrooms were both really bizarre; one of them had a giant marble tub raised up in it, with a toilet literally hidden underneath a lid next to it. The other bathroom had two toilets and two sinks randomly without stalls or anything- just in the middle of the room. The main room of the house had random stairs everywhere and was a crazy shape- the walls were at weird angles and were varying sizes. The place was filled with ornately carved furniture from all over the world. I spent awhile admiring everything. There was a glass case full of shiny little statues and a mobile made of origami cranes, several really old-looking round tables, and tons of chairs (no two were the same). I ate dinner with my new parents and several of their relatives and then went to bed watching the tv in my bedroom. That's when I woke up. What a night.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Vampire Attack Technology Fair
I've been dreaming a lot lately, but it's been pretty fragmented. Most of the dreams I've had the past couple of weeks could be reduced to one or two lines. But last night was different- back to the usual intense, vivid experience.
I've been reading a fantasy novel about vampires sneaking up on people, so my first dream isn't really a surprise. It started out really fun, actually- I was one of the vampires and I had cool powers and I was running around feeding on people. I could see perfectly in the dark, suddenly appear or disappear and run really fast. I was also pretty high-ranking, so I had a couple other vampires under my command. I could manipulate them any way I wanted. That part was entertaining because I knew I was dreaming, so I knew I wasn't actually hurting anyone. Then I woke up from that dream. I was in the bedroom of my old house- the one I grew up in and where most of my nightmares take place. I sat up in my bed, thinking about the cool dream I just had. Suddenly I realized my leg hurt really, really bad and felt wet. It was literally throbbing with pain. I pulled off my pajama pants and looked. Right in the inside of my thigh was two round holes, bleeding profusely. The blood was intensely vivid red. It hurt so bad and I was terrified. I knew vampires didn't exist and I had only been dreaming, so I concluded that someone had seen me reading a novel about vampires and decided to sneak into my room and stab me while I was asleep (much more plausible, right?). So I started peering out my large windows, trying to make sure no one was out there, waiting for me to go to sleep again. I couldn't see anything, so I tried closing the blinds so they at least wouldn't be able to see me. Of course it wasn't working and I was having a hard time with my vision all of a sudden. I groped around trying to make sure I was still alone in the room, lashing out if I saw movement in case someone was about to grab me. Evidently I was the only one in the house, so I couldn't call for help. I got very scared until my neck froze up and struggling to move it woke me up into reality.
After being held for awhile and another dose of Xyrem, I did get back to sleep. This time I had a much more entertaining and fun dream. I was at some sort of technology fair where people were playing with trampolines that were video games. You would bounce and push different parts of the trampoline with your feet and hands and it would light up in different colors. Some trampolines had maps on them and you could bounce from place to place to score points. Many of my friends and relatives were there, from my dad to high school friends to people I barely knew in college. I spent most of the time playing with the games and being surprisingly not self conscious for being in so large a crowd. After that we went to a cafeteria for lunch and I realized I didn't have any food with me. Luckily I managed to locate quesadillas that happened to be gluten-free and a sandwich I could take the bread off of and just eat the inside. In real life contamination issues probably would have gotten me, but in the dream it turned out fine and I was proud of myself for being so social and adaptable. And I want one of those trampolines lol.
I've been reading a fantasy novel about vampires sneaking up on people, so my first dream isn't really a surprise. It started out really fun, actually- I was one of the vampires and I had cool powers and I was running around feeding on people. I could see perfectly in the dark, suddenly appear or disappear and run really fast. I was also pretty high-ranking, so I had a couple other vampires under my command. I could manipulate them any way I wanted. That part was entertaining because I knew I was dreaming, so I knew I wasn't actually hurting anyone. Then I woke up from that dream. I was in the bedroom of my old house- the one I grew up in and where most of my nightmares take place. I sat up in my bed, thinking about the cool dream I just had. Suddenly I realized my leg hurt really, really bad and felt wet. It was literally throbbing with pain. I pulled off my pajama pants and looked. Right in the inside of my thigh was two round holes, bleeding profusely. The blood was intensely vivid red. It hurt so bad and I was terrified. I knew vampires didn't exist and I had only been dreaming, so I concluded that someone had seen me reading a novel about vampires and decided to sneak into my room and stab me while I was asleep (much more plausible, right?). So I started peering out my large windows, trying to make sure no one was out there, waiting for me to go to sleep again. I couldn't see anything, so I tried closing the blinds so they at least wouldn't be able to see me. Of course it wasn't working and I was having a hard time with my vision all of a sudden. I groped around trying to make sure I was still alone in the room, lashing out if I saw movement in case someone was about to grab me. Evidently I was the only one in the house, so I couldn't call for help. I got very scared until my neck froze up and struggling to move it woke me up into reality.
After being held for awhile and another dose of Xyrem, I did get back to sleep. This time I had a much more entertaining and fun dream. I was at some sort of technology fair where people were playing with trampolines that were video games. You would bounce and push different parts of the trampoline with your feet and hands and it would light up in different colors. Some trampolines had maps on them and you could bounce from place to place to score points. Many of my friends and relatives were there, from my dad to high school friends to people I barely knew in college. I spent most of the time playing with the games and being surprisingly not self conscious for being in so large a crowd. After that we went to a cafeteria for lunch and I realized I didn't have any food with me. Luckily I managed to locate quesadillas that happened to be gluten-free and a sandwich I could take the bread off of and just eat the inside. In real life contamination issues probably would have gotten me, but in the dream it turned out fine and I was proud of myself for being so social and adaptable. And I want one of those trampolines lol.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Grocery Store Fiasco
I had a very amusing dream last night. Not amusing in a ha-ha-funny kind of way; more like amusing in an oh-that-just-figures kind of way.
I had just arrived at one of the local grocery stores after being in a class apparently, and I was completely exhausted. I felt like I was going to fall over, so I was holding onto the cart for dear life. As I grabbed the few things I had come to get, my eyelids kept closing and then I would wake up suddenly, still clutching the cart, with no idea how much time had passed or what I had been doing. This was happening more and more and I was beginning to feel panicked, so I took my cart over to check out, figuring I'd better just get home. I put my purchases on the belt and was looking at them. I blinked and examined a box of tea more closely to find that it was clearly labeled "soy tea" (I'm sensitive to gluten and soy and can't eat them in any amount without feeling awful). I shrugged and figured my girlfriend would drink it, but then I noticed that it had "now with meat!!" written on the front (my girlfriend is a vegetarian). So I told the cashier that I didn't want the tea and she took it out for me. I looked back at the things I was buying and suddenly spotted some chicken kabobs that were clearly breaded. I took those out and examined everything else, but kept finding things neither of us could eat. Then after awhile it was time to pay, and the total was $10.45 (cheap haha). I pulled out my wallet but couldn't find my card- I was having a really hard time focusing and every time I dug in there things changed around and I found somewhere else to check, but it wasn't anywhere. So I got out my cash- I had two tens and two ones, and my mind was moving so slowly that I couldn't figure out what to give the cashier. By now I was explaining to her how tired I was and that I was sorry this was taking so long and generally feeling like a total moron. She was pretty nice about it, but I could see that she thought I was really strange. I gave her the two ones, but then realized that wasn't it, so I just handed her all of my cash and she gave me change. Then I ran out of there.
There was a time jump and I was at the vet's office instead of going home. I was still so exhausted I was having trouble walking straight and reading the signs telling me where to go. The place looked way more like a hospital than a vet's office- it was huge. Eventually I found where my girlfriend was with our dachshund. The vet was saying they needed to do an x-ray of his liver, but apparently this involved poking a scope around inside it to feel the lump that was next to it better. It literally made no sense and I was just really worried about my dog. I woke up before anything else happened and grossed out my girlfriend with the meat-and-soy tea thing, hahaha.
I had just arrived at one of the local grocery stores after being in a class apparently, and I was completely exhausted. I felt like I was going to fall over, so I was holding onto the cart for dear life. As I grabbed the few things I had come to get, my eyelids kept closing and then I would wake up suddenly, still clutching the cart, with no idea how much time had passed or what I had been doing. This was happening more and more and I was beginning to feel panicked, so I took my cart over to check out, figuring I'd better just get home. I put my purchases on the belt and was looking at them. I blinked and examined a box of tea more closely to find that it was clearly labeled "soy tea" (I'm sensitive to gluten and soy and can't eat them in any amount without feeling awful). I shrugged and figured my girlfriend would drink it, but then I noticed that it had "now with meat!!" written on the front (my girlfriend is a vegetarian). So I told the cashier that I didn't want the tea and she took it out for me. I looked back at the things I was buying and suddenly spotted some chicken kabobs that were clearly breaded. I took those out and examined everything else, but kept finding things neither of us could eat. Then after awhile it was time to pay, and the total was $10.45 (cheap haha). I pulled out my wallet but couldn't find my card- I was having a really hard time focusing and every time I dug in there things changed around and I found somewhere else to check, but it wasn't anywhere. So I got out my cash- I had two tens and two ones, and my mind was moving so slowly that I couldn't figure out what to give the cashier. By now I was explaining to her how tired I was and that I was sorry this was taking so long and generally feeling like a total moron. She was pretty nice about it, but I could see that she thought I was really strange. I gave her the two ones, but then realized that wasn't it, so I just handed her all of my cash and she gave me change. Then I ran out of there.
There was a time jump and I was at the vet's office instead of going home. I was still so exhausted I was having trouble walking straight and reading the signs telling me where to go. The place looked way more like a hospital than a vet's office- it was huge. Eventually I found where my girlfriend was with our dachshund. The vet was saying they needed to do an x-ray of his liver, but apparently this involved poking a scope around inside it to feel the lump that was next to it better. It literally made no sense and I was just really worried about my dog. I woke up before anything else happened and grossed out my girlfriend with the meat-and-soy tea thing, hahaha.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Soapy Arm Neon Barn Night Picnic
I've intentionally slept in for a couple of days in a row now. On Monday this worked really well and I felt great- way more refreshed than if I'd gotten up when I normally do. I think I needed the extra sleep after having a busy day on Sunday, plus recovering from being sick last week. So I figured I'd try it again today. Well, it didn't exactly go as I was hoping. I basically just ended up dreaming like crazy.
In one dream, I was in my grandparents' house using their bathtub (only it was the one that was there when I was little- they've since remodeled). I had hurt my arm- I couldn't move it and it hurt, so I'm assuming I had broken it- riding my bicycle the wrong direction down a busy street. As I recalled this, the dream took me there, and I dreamed about dodging cars and looking for someone I was supposed to be following, for some reason into oncoming traffic. Suddenly I jerked back into the bathtub, where I was sitting in extremely soapy water while fully clothed, trying to clean my broken arm for some reason. It was really slimy soap and I could feel it soaked through my jeans. I dipped my arm into it and slipped- I fell forward suddenly and got a face-full of soap. I shut my eyes but it went in my nose and mouth and I couldn't breathe for a minute. I sat up carefully and tried to rinse off my face, but I was using my really soapy hands so I just made it worse instead. Then I fell forward again. I don't remember anything else from that one. I could literally feel the sliminess and wetness of the soapy water, though.
Another dream had me visiting various cousins who I haven't seen in awhile. One of them was living in this gigantic house with a crazy barn in the yard. The barn was like a house by itself- completely finished on the inside and painted in totally crazy neon colors. The rooms/stalls were huge and my cousin was telling me that she was planning on raising massive numbers of cats in them. There wasn't any furniture and so everything we said echoed loudly. I don't remember much more about that dream except that I was telling another cousin about some memories that I had, only they were actually dreams I've had before- some of them years ago. In the dream I was convinced they had been real. In a way it was cool because there were several I hadn't thought about in years.
In my last dream I was driving around with my girlfriend through a dark wooded area on a little road at night. We were on a date and had brought a picnic and were looking for someplace to set it up. We kept passing other couples sitting in all of the good spots, some of them up in trees. Eventually we ended up at a house that was on the side of the road- it looked like it belonged in a suburb, not the middle of the woods, and it had a floodlight that lit it and the driveway with a stark yellowish light. She wanted to go up and knock to see if we could have our picnic on the owner's land, but I was worried and didn't want to. She knocked and no one was there, so instead we found a patch of moonlight down the road and ate our picnic in the car.
In one dream, I was in my grandparents' house using their bathtub (only it was the one that was there when I was little- they've since remodeled). I had hurt my arm- I couldn't move it and it hurt, so I'm assuming I had broken it- riding my bicycle the wrong direction down a busy street. As I recalled this, the dream took me there, and I dreamed about dodging cars and looking for someone I was supposed to be following, for some reason into oncoming traffic. Suddenly I jerked back into the bathtub, where I was sitting in extremely soapy water while fully clothed, trying to clean my broken arm for some reason. It was really slimy soap and I could feel it soaked through my jeans. I dipped my arm into it and slipped- I fell forward suddenly and got a face-full of soap. I shut my eyes but it went in my nose and mouth and I couldn't breathe for a minute. I sat up carefully and tried to rinse off my face, but I was using my really soapy hands so I just made it worse instead. Then I fell forward again. I don't remember anything else from that one. I could literally feel the sliminess and wetness of the soapy water, though.
Another dream had me visiting various cousins who I haven't seen in awhile. One of them was living in this gigantic house with a crazy barn in the yard. The barn was like a house by itself- completely finished on the inside and painted in totally crazy neon colors. The rooms/stalls were huge and my cousin was telling me that she was planning on raising massive numbers of cats in them. There wasn't any furniture and so everything we said echoed loudly. I don't remember much more about that dream except that I was telling another cousin about some memories that I had, only they were actually dreams I've had before- some of them years ago. In the dream I was convinced they had been real. In a way it was cool because there were several I hadn't thought about in years.
In my last dream I was driving around with my girlfriend through a dark wooded area on a little road at night. We were on a date and had brought a picnic and were looking for someplace to set it up. We kept passing other couples sitting in all of the good spots, some of them up in trees. Eventually we ended up at a house that was on the side of the road- it looked like it belonged in a suburb, not the middle of the woods, and it had a floodlight that lit it and the driveway with a stark yellowish light. She wanted to go up and knock to see if we could have our picnic on the owner's land, but I was worried and didn't want to. She knocked and no one was there, so instead we found a patch of moonlight down the road and ate our picnic in the car.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Itching to Clean
Well, the double cold ended up looking more like the flu- we were both feeling pretty awful for four days each. My girlfriend didn't go back to work until yesterday (she was still recovering even then) and I was still feeling really miserable. Today was my last day of feeling sick I think, or at least the first day I've really felt like I was starting to recover. Mostly today I was just wiped out. I thought I was exhausted before, but getting sick has given me a new perspective on things. I didn't venture down the stairs for several days, and when I did it this morning- to take Noodle outside to go to the bathroom- it completely flattened me. By the afternoon I felt better, and then the challenge was to avoid doing too much. With both of us out of commission since last weekend started, and with four pets up here in addition to us, things have gotten pretty filthy. My girlfriend recovered first, but she's had a lot to do with work, tutoring and pets; besides that she's really not the cleaning type. Now, my girlfriend and I are agreed on one thing- I'm a little bit crazy. I love cleaning. It's not that I'm obsessive about it being clean all the time or something, though if I'm honest with myself I may have inherited a little of that from my dad (who is a total neatfreak). It's more just something that gives me satisfaction, that I enjoy doing and that I think is fun. Yes, I think sweeping is really entertaining, lol. So today it was pretty difficult to keep myself in check. There's a nice layer of fur on the floor everywhere and the surfaces have food gunk or crumbs on them from having our food near us. Things- like books, DVDs, and empty kleenex boxes, have been migrating around the upstairs. I even found an uneaten clementine in a bag somewhere, forgotten because we didn't bring it when we went into the other room a couple days ago. So I let myself move a few things around and sweep a tiny bit in the worst room. I did a few dishes and cleaned a couple of counters and felt much better about life. I was careful, though, and tired quickly as expected. I think I'll end up doing a lot tomorrow- hopefully feeling even better than I did today- and I can start to get caught up. Did I mention the laundry? We've got about six loads at this point, since we were sick when we usually do it.
And here's a dream I've been meaning to record. I got up in the night to take more Xyrem and go use the bathroom. I was at the house I grew up in, which for some reason didn't tip me off- I was convinced it was real life. I get to the bathroom to find that, once again, the toilet is obviously not working. I sigh and decide I'd better use the other bathroom, so I head in that direction. I reach out and open the door. Bright light shines on me and suddenly I see that there's this teenage girl standing on the inside of the door, looking straight at me with this huge smile on her face. I jump about a foot in the air since I wasn't expecting anyone, especially somebody I'd never seen before, to be in there. She starts laughing and I try to laugh it off but I'm pretty creeped out by the whole thing. Her grin is so big that it's stretching her face unnaturally. I figured out it was a dream at that point, and instead of searching for a bathroom I started trying to figure out how to wake up. I just wandered around the house hoping to snap out of it, figuring I would feel different if I actually woke up. Which I did after awhile, very confused about which house I was in, but also quite relieved.
And here's a dream I've been meaning to record. I got up in the night to take more Xyrem and go use the bathroom. I was at the house I grew up in, which for some reason didn't tip me off- I was convinced it was real life. I get to the bathroom to find that, once again, the toilet is obviously not working. I sigh and decide I'd better use the other bathroom, so I head in that direction. I reach out and open the door. Bright light shines on me and suddenly I see that there's this teenage girl standing on the inside of the door, looking straight at me with this huge smile on her face. I jump about a foot in the air since I wasn't expecting anyone, especially somebody I'd never seen before, to be in there. She starts laughing and I try to laugh it off but I'm pretty creeped out by the whole thing. Her grin is so big that it's stretching her face unnaturally. I figured out it was a dream at that point, and instead of searching for a bathroom I started trying to figure out how to wake up. I just wandered around the house hoping to snap out of it, figuring I would feel different if I actually woke up. Which I did after awhile, very confused about which house I was in, but also quite relieved.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Old World Community Center
I had a pretty good night last night until about the middle of my third dose. Then it was crazy dream time.
I think it started off with me standing on the sidewalk next to a quiet city street. It was a pretty typical neighborhood with street lamps and small houses that looked like they were old but well-kept. I walked down the street and turned toward a small apartment building. Up a flight of stairs and down a hallway that was also a balcony I pulled out my key, unlocked a door and went in. My roommate was there- only she wasn't anything like any roommate I've had in real life. She was this artist woman in her 50s who was pretty sick but still smoking cigarettes anyway. She had the living room of our apartment as her art studio. There were paintings and paint and rags and brushes and sculpting stuff lying around everywhere. I was apparently quite a bit younger than I am in real life and she had taken me in. It was interesting because I wasn't really into art at all, it was just something this roommate did.
She had an exhibition of her work at this fancy building and we were there for the next part of the dream. I ran around exploring because the building was really cool. It looked like it had been decorated in England in the 1700s or something, and there was crazy detailed wallpaper, gilded details on the walls and ceiling, and all the wood was dark and old-looking. It had been a manor house at one point and was now converted into a community center of sorts. There were several auditoriums with things going on the same night as the exhibition, including a lecture on autism and a fancy opera. I tried to stand in the back of both to watch for awhile, but you needed a ticket and I didn't have any money, so I just ended up wandering hallways and admiring the decoration.
After awhile it was getting late and my roommate wasn't done with her art event, so I went to the bathrooms and found luxurious bathtubs and showers with lots of plush towels. I decided I might as well take a shower there, and I was mostly done and just drying off when I heard my dachshund barking outside the bathroom. Pretty sure he was getting into trouble, I grabbed a big towel, wrapped it around me and ran out of the bathroom. He was being all bossy at one of the visitors who had come in the door, so I went to grab him. He tried to run away and turned into a very old man, who fell over as I tried to catch his ankle. People were watching us now and I was explaining how it was actually my dog and this was his tactic for avoiding getting in trouble when I woke up. Talk about strange.
I think it started off with me standing on the sidewalk next to a quiet city street. It was a pretty typical neighborhood with street lamps and small houses that looked like they were old but well-kept. I walked down the street and turned toward a small apartment building. Up a flight of stairs and down a hallway that was also a balcony I pulled out my key, unlocked a door and went in. My roommate was there- only she wasn't anything like any roommate I've had in real life. She was this artist woman in her 50s who was pretty sick but still smoking cigarettes anyway. She had the living room of our apartment as her art studio. There were paintings and paint and rags and brushes and sculpting stuff lying around everywhere. I was apparently quite a bit younger than I am in real life and she had taken me in. It was interesting because I wasn't really into art at all, it was just something this roommate did.
She had an exhibition of her work at this fancy building and we were there for the next part of the dream. I ran around exploring because the building was really cool. It looked like it had been decorated in England in the 1700s or something, and there was crazy detailed wallpaper, gilded details on the walls and ceiling, and all the wood was dark and old-looking. It had been a manor house at one point and was now converted into a community center of sorts. There were several auditoriums with things going on the same night as the exhibition, including a lecture on autism and a fancy opera. I tried to stand in the back of both to watch for awhile, but you needed a ticket and I didn't have any money, so I just ended up wandering hallways and admiring the decoration.
After awhile it was getting late and my roommate wasn't done with her art event, so I went to the bathrooms and found luxurious bathtubs and showers with lots of plush towels. I decided I might as well take a shower there, and I was mostly done and just drying off when I heard my dachshund barking outside the bathroom. Pretty sure he was getting into trouble, I grabbed a big towel, wrapped it around me and ran out of the bathroom. He was being all bossy at one of the visitors who had come in the door, so I went to grab him. He tried to run away and turned into a very old man, who fell over as I tried to catch his ankle. People were watching us now and I was explaining how it was actually my dog and this was his tactic for avoiding getting in trouble when I woke up. Talk about strange.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Six-Armed Demon Movie
I had a freaky nightmare a couple nights ago, complete with hallucination. I had completely forgotten to turn the lamp next to my bed on. Well, I won't be forgetting that again any time soon, at least.
The dream was about me accidentally seeing an ad for a horror film and then freaking myself out over it. I was at my grandparents' house, and it was late at night. I was watching tv because someone else had turned it on and I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. I needed to be asleep and I was exhausted. I was also totally alone in the house and kept hearing the occasional creepy noise in another room, so I was already kind of freaked out before the ad came on. It was for this new movie that was about a demon. He looked like a little boy with pointy ears and teeth and he had six arms that ended in long sharp nails. He could scuttle across the walls and melt in and out of them. It seriously creeped me out to the point where I kept imagining him being right behind me, which happens in real life if I get too creeped out by something on tv or in a movie. Only in the dream it was more real- and half the time he was actually there for a second before suddenly disappearing. Then, in real life, my alarm went off and I opened my eyes, to see an image of the boy demon's face inches above mine. I jumped because it scared me and the image dissolved and blew away, exactly how it would if it had been made out of sand and the wind came. It was so bizarre it took me a minute to realize I had been hallucinating. I sat up and turned on lights and clung to my girlfriend for a minute and it was awhile before I dared to go back to sleep.
The dream was about me accidentally seeing an ad for a horror film and then freaking myself out over it. I was at my grandparents' house, and it was late at night. I was watching tv because someone else had turned it on and I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. I needed to be asleep and I was exhausted. I was also totally alone in the house and kept hearing the occasional creepy noise in another room, so I was already kind of freaked out before the ad came on. It was for this new movie that was about a demon. He looked like a little boy with pointy ears and teeth and he had six arms that ended in long sharp nails. He could scuttle across the walls and melt in and out of them. It seriously creeped me out to the point where I kept imagining him being right behind me, which happens in real life if I get too creeped out by something on tv or in a movie. Only in the dream it was more real- and half the time he was actually there for a second before suddenly disappearing. Then, in real life, my alarm went off and I opened my eyes, to see an image of the boy demon's face inches above mine. I jumped because it scared me and the image dissolved and blew away, exactly how it would if it had been made out of sand and the wind came. It was so bizarre it took me a minute to realize I had been hallucinating. I sat up and turned on lights and clung to my girlfriend for a minute and it was awhile before I dared to go back to sleep.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
General Imploding
Well, today was... one of those days.
It started out with an especially sticky dream. It was pointless drama with various friends from the past, and it was basically frustrating and lonely and very vivid. I remember I could tell it was a dream by the end, but it took me a long time to escape. I tried thinking about waking up. I tried to open my eyes. I tried waving my arms around. I tried changing the setting of the dream because that usually wakes me up right away, but instead the setting just changed. I started to panic a little and wonder if it wasn't really a dream because I was having so much trouble getting out of it. Finally I decided if I fell off of something, I would probably wake up the second I would have hit the ground in my dream. So I climbed a bookcase and deliberately fell off. The stab of fear as I was falling did in fact jar me enough. I sat up, suddenly in the real world again. I had a nasty headache and the inside of my head felt like it was still glued to the dream. My eyelids kept trying to close and I was still half asleep. I got up feeling like I was tired enough to go straight back to bed.
Thinking didn't work particularly well. I quickly realized I couldn't retain information. Now, I'm really lucky. This didn't get me in too much trouble. I don't have kids to try to keep up with or a job to completely mess up when I'm way out of it. I just have pets.
The timing was pretty unfortunate for a bad day though. My girlfriend started her student teaching yesterday, so it was only my second day holding down the fort and the animals haven't quite figured it all out yet. Especially the big dog, who I'm going to start referring to as Fang because his canines stick out over his lower lip when he's upside down and in play mode, making him look hilarious. He's one, and definitely still a puppy, even if he is a 60+ pound puppy. Now, you might imagine I wasn't the one to fall madly in love with his rather large, fanged face lol, given the fact that I can barely carry my 15 pound dachshund down the stairs. Dogs are very much into physical contact and I know from my own little dog that it works way better to enforce the rules by gentle pushing. Of course, with him it's a breeze. His legs are super short and he's so small that despite my lack of physical strength I can still put him in a sit or lay down position if he won't do it on command. With Fang it's different because it takes literally my whole body to pull him an inch and I seriously can't put him in a sit.
So knowing this, I was a little intimidated by him at first. After all, the only dog I've ever actually trained is maybe a foot off the ground. Because of my unsure state of mind we were mutually distrustful for awhile, though we've been working on it and our relationship has improved a lot.
Well, today my girlfriend forgot to feed him before she left in the morning, but it took me awhile to figure this out. This was a difficult situation because he's only recently started taking food from me (and we have to feed him by hand because he gets overprotective otherwise as a result of his hungry past). I eventually got a message from her and tried to feed him, but he wouldn't eat and was generally depressed. I got pretty upset, because I'm extra sensitive and weepy when I'm feeling especially crappy. When she called me to check up I must have sounded pretty bad because she came home for lunch, took care of the fang-face and even heated lunch up for me. And I spent the rest of the day in bed watching movies while she was at work.
Days like today are frustrating because I literally can't accomplish anything. I'm so completely brain-dead that daily life decisions become difficult. All I can do is hope I sleep better tonight and thank my lucky stars that my life situation is so incredible and allows for a day of just resting.
It started out with an especially sticky dream. It was pointless drama with various friends from the past, and it was basically frustrating and lonely and very vivid. I remember I could tell it was a dream by the end, but it took me a long time to escape. I tried thinking about waking up. I tried to open my eyes. I tried waving my arms around. I tried changing the setting of the dream because that usually wakes me up right away, but instead the setting just changed. I started to panic a little and wonder if it wasn't really a dream because I was having so much trouble getting out of it. Finally I decided if I fell off of something, I would probably wake up the second I would have hit the ground in my dream. So I climbed a bookcase and deliberately fell off. The stab of fear as I was falling did in fact jar me enough. I sat up, suddenly in the real world again. I had a nasty headache and the inside of my head felt like it was still glued to the dream. My eyelids kept trying to close and I was still half asleep. I got up feeling like I was tired enough to go straight back to bed.
Thinking didn't work particularly well. I quickly realized I couldn't retain information. Now, I'm really lucky. This didn't get me in too much trouble. I don't have kids to try to keep up with or a job to completely mess up when I'm way out of it. I just have pets.
The timing was pretty unfortunate for a bad day though. My girlfriend started her student teaching yesterday, so it was only my second day holding down the fort and the animals haven't quite figured it all out yet. Especially the big dog, who I'm going to start referring to as Fang because his canines stick out over his lower lip when he's upside down and in play mode, making him look hilarious. He's one, and definitely still a puppy, even if he is a 60+ pound puppy. Now, you might imagine I wasn't the one to fall madly in love with his rather large, fanged face lol, given the fact that I can barely carry my 15 pound dachshund down the stairs. Dogs are very much into physical contact and I know from my own little dog that it works way better to enforce the rules by gentle pushing. Of course, with him it's a breeze. His legs are super short and he's so small that despite my lack of physical strength I can still put him in a sit or lay down position if he won't do it on command. With Fang it's different because it takes literally my whole body to pull him an inch and I seriously can't put him in a sit.
So knowing this, I was a little intimidated by him at first. After all, the only dog I've ever actually trained is maybe a foot off the ground. Because of my unsure state of mind we were mutually distrustful for awhile, though we've been working on it and our relationship has improved a lot.
Well, today my girlfriend forgot to feed him before she left in the morning, but it took me awhile to figure this out. This was a difficult situation because he's only recently started taking food from me (and we have to feed him by hand because he gets overprotective otherwise as a result of his hungry past). I eventually got a message from her and tried to feed him, but he wouldn't eat and was generally depressed. I got pretty upset, because I'm extra sensitive and weepy when I'm feeling especially crappy. When she called me to check up I must have sounded pretty bad because she came home for lunch, took care of the fang-face and even heated lunch up for me. And I spent the rest of the day in bed watching movies while she was at work.
Days like today are frustrating because I literally can't accomplish anything. I'm so completely brain-dead that daily life decisions become difficult. All I can do is hope I sleep better tonight and thank my lucky stars that my life situation is so incredible and allows for a day of just resting.
Monday, January 25, 2010
High Rise Dog Crash
Last night was full of vivid and crazy but mostly not disturbing dreams. The one I remember was pretty interesting. I was living in an apartment in a high rise on a narrow street in downtown somewhere. I was sitting at a desk in my mostly dark room, and it was night outside my street-facing windows- I was high up, so you could see a spectacular night skyline out there. I was working on things on my laptop. I was getting frustrated because I was trying to set up a business site for my artwork, but I kept running into strange problems, like buttons I was supposed to push randomly disappearing and forms I was supposed to fill out not making any sense whatsoever. I finally thought I had it working, and I was uploading art to it when I looked out the window and saw a small dog leap off of someone else's rooftop right across the street and right in through my windows, smashing a small part of them. The dog was surprised and very angry, and immediately lashed out at my leg. It was a little, springy, ferocious dog with a long nose. I immediately stood up and turned dog whisperer, haha. The dog sat down and stopped attacking me. Thinking fast I grabbed some treats out of the cabinet and we started practicing sit and stay and lie down, which the dog figured out really fast. I knew I just needed to stall until the owner came to pick him up, as I assumed they would do soon since they saw which window the dog jumped into. We had fun doing that, and then we worked on manners a little bit. Suddenly I spotted this huge, red worm on my table- it looked and felt like it was made of jello, but it was definitely alive. I grabbed it with one hand and threw it out into my backyard that I suddenly had, and my hand got all slimy in the process. I offered my slimy hand to the dog, figuring it would gain me points. The dog was a little too eager and bit my hand, but I didn't have time to survey the damage because the owner- and haughty young woman, who didn't even apologize- came in and picked him up. She looked surprised at how calmly he was lying on the floor when she came in. She took him away, and just then two of my friends came in. It was weird because they were both totally made up and didn't look or act quite like any of my actual friends. I told them what had happened and then looked down at my hand to find that my left thumb was chopped off, very cleanly, at the first joint. There was no blood and it looked like something out of a cartoon- a wobbly circle in the center that was white like it was the bone, inside a pink circle inside a thin circle where the skin was. At that point I totally realized it was a dream, and talked to my friends about it and how dreams can be really weird, and then I totally regrew it on the spot. Then we were suddenly at one of the friends' houses at a classy party and I was trying to explain narcolepsy to people because they kept asking me what I'm doing for my career and I didn't feel like making something up. And then I woke up.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Dreams and Drugs
Yeah, I've been officially neglecting my blog again, which is fine because I'm actually pretty busy and very happy at the moment. Plus I have plenty of new things to talk about when I do find the time.
My Narcolepsy has pretty much been the same as when I left my parents' house to come live with my girlfriend. Having someone next to me while I'm sleeping has been extremely comforting for me, but besides that I'm still dreaming a lot- like, constantly and very vividly. I had an interesting and kind of fun one last week in which I was this velociraptor who was staying in a motel, lol. It was a perfectly ordinary motel room, and apparently I was this really nice and gentlemanly male velociraptor who had been hired as a kind of guard by the guy who ran the motel. I was wandering around, waiting because I knew of a couple of younger and much less polite velociraptors who were going to come try to eat people who were staying there. I was warning people and encouraging them to stay inside until I had chased off the intruders. I was a little nervous, but did my best to reassure people. They were pretty nice to me and I managed to win them over with my good manners, hahaha. So eventually the other velociraptors showed up, and I totally scared them off really easily and then wondered why I had been so nervous.
Then, yesterday maybe, I woke up from this really weird dream in which I had been watching a series of bad tv movies, lol. Of course I was halfway watching them and complaining about how bad the script was and halfway actually in them, wandering around or being the main character. The last movie is the one I really remember- it started with a teenager with a backpack, wandering towards a city following this ditch along a highway. And then it cut to this really bizarre place where I was wandering. It was a tunnel that was partially underwater, and the walls were made of totem poles that were carved and painted as faces with red, white and black paint. The faces were moving and contorting on their own, and I knew that they were all actually my own people just pretending to be totem poles and that I could turn into one and blend in if I wanted to. Then I saw the teenage boy with the backpack coming towards me, where there was a bench. He was flailing and waving his arms and muttering and it kind of scared me, so I leaned into a blank spot in the wall and turned into a totem pole so he wouldn't see me. He sat down on the bench, still muttering and looking crazy, until a couple of people who I knew were from an enemy tribe came and persuaded him to leave with them. I got worried because I figured that wouldn't be a good thing, so as soon as they left I jumped out of the wall and ran to find help. And then I woke up.
Besides dreaming a lot, I've been pretty sleepy. As usual. So I decided I'd better try Nuvigil again now that I'm basically settled in here for awhile. I took half a pill this morning, and I have been more awake. I've also been a little wonky and my stomach isn't thrilled, but it hasn't completely revolted yet. And I have a minor headache again, which is pretty much the same as a couple weeks ago when I tried it. I think I have enough to take the half pill for more than a week, and then I'll know more and can call my doctor and report. We'll see how it goes this time. In the mean time I'm going to continue to enjoy life.
My Narcolepsy has pretty much been the same as when I left my parents' house to come live with my girlfriend. Having someone next to me while I'm sleeping has been extremely comforting for me, but besides that I'm still dreaming a lot- like, constantly and very vividly. I had an interesting and kind of fun one last week in which I was this velociraptor who was staying in a motel, lol. It was a perfectly ordinary motel room, and apparently I was this really nice and gentlemanly male velociraptor who had been hired as a kind of guard by the guy who ran the motel. I was wandering around, waiting because I knew of a couple of younger and much less polite velociraptors who were going to come try to eat people who were staying there. I was warning people and encouraging them to stay inside until I had chased off the intruders. I was a little nervous, but did my best to reassure people. They were pretty nice to me and I managed to win them over with my good manners, hahaha. So eventually the other velociraptors showed up, and I totally scared them off really easily and then wondered why I had been so nervous.
Then, yesterday maybe, I woke up from this really weird dream in which I had been watching a series of bad tv movies, lol. Of course I was halfway watching them and complaining about how bad the script was and halfway actually in them, wandering around or being the main character. The last movie is the one I really remember- it started with a teenager with a backpack, wandering towards a city following this ditch along a highway. And then it cut to this really bizarre place where I was wandering. It was a tunnel that was partially underwater, and the walls were made of totem poles that were carved and painted as faces with red, white and black paint. The faces were moving and contorting on their own, and I knew that they were all actually my own people just pretending to be totem poles and that I could turn into one and blend in if I wanted to. Then I saw the teenage boy with the backpack coming towards me, where there was a bench. He was flailing and waving his arms and muttering and it kind of scared me, so I leaned into a blank spot in the wall and turned into a totem pole so he wouldn't see me. He sat down on the bench, still muttering and looking crazy, until a couple of people who I knew were from an enemy tribe came and persuaded him to leave with them. I got worried because I figured that wouldn't be a good thing, so as soon as they left I jumped out of the wall and ran to find help. And then I woke up.
Besides dreaming a lot, I've been pretty sleepy. As usual. So I decided I'd better try Nuvigil again now that I'm basically settled in here for awhile. I took half a pill this morning, and I have been more awake. I've also been a little wonky and my stomach isn't thrilled, but it hasn't completely revolted yet. And I have a minor headache again, which is pretty much the same as a couple weeks ago when I tried it. I think I have enough to take the half pill for more than a week, and then I'll know more and can call my doctor and report. We'll see how it goes this time. In the mean time I'm going to continue to enjoy life.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Nuvigil Adventures Again
On Monday I went back to my neurologist, which I had been putting off. I wanted a break from having my medications tweaked this way and that, added and subtracted, and the resulting side effects. So I scheduled my appointment for as late as I could while still making it before my next move across the country, this time to be with my girlfriend. My doctor didn't particularly appreciate that, which I really can't blame him for. I come in doing the worst I have in the last year and a half, to announce that I'm leaving and no, can't come back in two weeks for him to mess with my medications some more. He's a good guy and it's obviously frustrating when he can't help me as much as he wants to.
I talked to him about my growing anxiety problem, and he said we could try a different antidepressant instead of Remeron, which isn't really designed to control anxiety, but that would come later. After the appointment I felt really dumb- or rather, really amused with myself, because the anxiety went away as soon as I walked out of there. Apparently I was anxious about the appointment, and thinking of it as an OMG Anxiety Problem!! just made it worse. This happens to me just infrequently enough that I forget to watch for it, lol. I'm going to keep an eye on it, but I suspect I'll have less issues once the move is complete and my quality of life is improved just by being with my girlfriend.
I also talked to my doctor about how exhausted I've been and the fact that I haven't been sleeping very well. I mean, my standards are pretty low, but dreaming for half the night with all this disturbing crap is really a bit much. We talked about Nuvigil again, and I decided to try a different sample pack instead of the one that gave me a gluten reaction. So I got that. He said we could try Adderal if I react to Nuvigil again, but he can't prescribe it across state lines so it would have to wait until the summer. And you know, that's fine with me.
So I started the Nuvigil again yesterday. So far the results are mixed. I had more energy yesterday and I didn't have a gluten reaction. I had a bad headache for awhile- not surprising as that's the main side effect people tend to have. It made me a little bit wonky. Like, I was kind of spaced out in a drugged sort of way. This is also something I tend to do when starting a new medication, so it's not a big deal. It might go away if I give it a chance. I was hopeful by the time I went to sleep.
Last night I was nauseated every time I took Xyrem, but it didn't keep me up. I slept very deeply for most of the night and only dreamed (comparatively) a little in the last third of the night.
I had moved into this dorm/office- complete with both desks and bunkbeds- and I was unsure as to how I'd ended up there in the first place. I had gone to visit someone there, maybe, and had somehow ended up working there and getting my own bunk. I didn't mind so much; it was an interesting place and the other people there were also students at the art institute. Our group's job was to work on this magazine. Everyone was really nice and it seemed fun, but it took me awhile to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. There were clues everywhere, right in front of my face, but I can be pretty slow sometimes. The magazine was called Freism, complete with this fancy logo, and I have no idea what it was about exactly. There were seven people assigned to work on it each year, and I had been hired because the seventh person had stopped showing up. There was a heirarchy, which I eventually figured out because it was posted on the wall, with the rankings as chess pieces. My job was to draw anything they needed for the magazine. I don't think any of us were getting paid, or else it just wasn't important. It seemed to be a volunteer position. The office was pretty cool. The bunkbeds were brightly colored like they were for kids, and there was art everywhere, hanging on walls and piled on the desks, which were arranged near each other so we could socialize while working. It was all very laid back and I didn't do much of anything other than chat with people and make up a new story. The story was about an angel and one of my characters that usually represents me falling in love with him. I don't really remember it now, except that I had wings too. I was telling the people in the office about it while we sat next to the giant wall of windows on one side that looked out on this huge and awesome oak tree. And after that, the second in command guy wanted me to draw something to show what I could do. All I had was this gigantic black marker and he wanted me to draw a machine that would convert moon rocks into gold coins, so I did. It wasn't too bad even though I kept messing up, lol.
I woke up really nauseated. It was after ten before I braved breakfast, which turned out okay because I needed to take my dog to the vet to get a health certificate for our flight and his appointment was at lunchtime. I took Nuvigil again after breakfast. The nausea went away but now my stomach is unhappy. I'm also still feeling really spaced out. I'm a little bit suspicious because it could be brain fog, which is a symptom of a gluten reaction, but I can't be sure yet. Luckily everything is pretty much arranged for our flight, so the ability to think isn't too important for a few days. So basically I'm still on the fence on this one. I need to see what happens tomorrow. If there is a tiny amount of gluten I'll start to react more and more if I keep taking it, so I'll know about it pretty soon. If not I'll have to see if the spaciness goes away, and decide about the headaches. We'll see.
I talked to him about my growing anxiety problem, and he said we could try a different antidepressant instead of Remeron, which isn't really designed to control anxiety, but that would come later. After the appointment I felt really dumb- or rather, really amused with myself, because the anxiety went away as soon as I walked out of there. Apparently I was anxious about the appointment, and thinking of it as an OMG Anxiety Problem!! just made it worse. This happens to me just infrequently enough that I forget to watch for it, lol. I'm going to keep an eye on it, but I suspect I'll have less issues once the move is complete and my quality of life is improved just by being with my girlfriend.
I also talked to my doctor about how exhausted I've been and the fact that I haven't been sleeping very well. I mean, my standards are pretty low, but dreaming for half the night with all this disturbing crap is really a bit much. We talked about Nuvigil again, and I decided to try a different sample pack instead of the one that gave me a gluten reaction. So I got that. He said we could try Adderal if I react to Nuvigil again, but he can't prescribe it across state lines so it would have to wait until the summer. And you know, that's fine with me.
So I started the Nuvigil again yesterday. So far the results are mixed. I had more energy yesterday and I didn't have a gluten reaction. I had a bad headache for awhile- not surprising as that's the main side effect people tend to have. It made me a little bit wonky. Like, I was kind of spaced out in a drugged sort of way. This is also something I tend to do when starting a new medication, so it's not a big deal. It might go away if I give it a chance. I was hopeful by the time I went to sleep.
Last night I was nauseated every time I took Xyrem, but it didn't keep me up. I slept very deeply for most of the night and only dreamed (comparatively) a little in the last third of the night.
I had moved into this dorm/office- complete with both desks and bunkbeds- and I was unsure as to how I'd ended up there in the first place. I had gone to visit someone there, maybe, and had somehow ended up working there and getting my own bunk. I didn't mind so much; it was an interesting place and the other people there were also students at the art institute. Our group's job was to work on this magazine. Everyone was really nice and it seemed fun, but it took me awhile to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. There were clues everywhere, right in front of my face, but I can be pretty slow sometimes. The magazine was called Freism, complete with this fancy logo, and I have no idea what it was about exactly. There were seven people assigned to work on it each year, and I had been hired because the seventh person had stopped showing up. There was a heirarchy, which I eventually figured out because it was posted on the wall, with the rankings as chess pieces. My job was to draw anything they needed for the magazine. I don't think any of us were getting paid, or else it just wasn't important. It seemed to be a volunteer position. The office was pretty cool. The bunkbeds were brightly colored like they were for kids, and there was art everywhere, hanging on walls and piled on the desks, which were arranged near each other so we could socialize while working. It was all very laid back and I didn't do much of anything other than chat with people and make up a new story. The story was about an angel and one of my characters that usually represents me falling in love with him. I don't really remember it now, except that I had wings too. I was telling the people in the office about it while we sat next to the giant wall of windows on one side that looked out on this huge and awesome oak tree. And after that, the second in command guy wanted me to draw something to show what I could do. All I had was this gigantic black marker and he wanted me to draw a machine that would convert moon rocks into gold coins, so I did. It wasn't too bad even though I kept messing up, lol.
I woke up really nauseated. It was after ten before I braved breakfast, which turned out okay because I needed to take my dog to the vet to get a health certificate for our flight and his appointment was at lunchtime. I took Nuvigil again after breakfast. The nausea went away but now my stomach is unhappy. I'm also still feeling really spaced out. I'm a little bit suspicious because it could be brain fog, which is a symptom of a gluten reaction, but I can't be sure yet. Luckily everything is pretty much arranged for our flight, so the ability to think isn't too important for a few days. So basically I'm still on the fence on this one. I need to see what happens tomorrow. If there is a tiny amount of gluten I'll start to react more and more if I keep taking it, so I'll know about it pretty soon. If not I'll have to see if the spaciness goes away, and decide about the headaches. We'll see.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Art College Dorm Friends
More dreams. This time apparently more convincing. o.O
I was just moving in to this house to live with a group of other students from my art college, only they were all people I didn't know. We were exploring the small house, unpacking our things and joking around. Everyone seemed pretty nice. There were at least six of us, pretty much evenly divided between male and female though the numbers changed a little throughout the dream. A couple of people cooked dinner and made it gluten-free for me, which went fine. It was spaghetti and meatballs. We ate it while we watched this really dumb movie and people were making plans to go to another movie after dinner. It was getting late and I wasn't sure I should go, since I was exhausted and getting sleepy. I finished my dinner and looked around at everyone else, seated at two tables in our living room, which had no other furniture. I spotted one of the people who had cooked it. She looked a lot like one of my high school friends, even though she was supposedly a different person. She had seemed really nice so I thought I should get her attention (she was sitting at the other table) so maybe we could talk instead of going to the movie. As I watched, she started falling asleep sitting there, and I was interested to know if she had Narcolepsy too. I finally managed to signal her and so after dinner when everyone left, we ended up sitting in one of the bedrooms, talking. I kept trying to start my explanation of Narcolepsy because I really wanted to know if she had it, but she kept taking the conversation in some other direction every time I had an opportunity. Like, she asked me if I drank and I told her no, I can't because of my medication. But then she completely changed the subject to her stories and characters, which was really cool because we had that in common, so I gave up and figured I'd just end up explaining it all later. We were sitting on the floor, leaning over this sheet of notebook paper on which she had written the names of places in a world she had invented, and I was trying to pronounce them. I was happy because I had a new friend. And then I suddenly found myself in my bed, awake. I was really confused because I had been so positive I had actually been talking to this new friend. It took me a moment to figure out it was a dream.
I was just moving in to this house to live with a group of other students from my art college, only they were all people I didn't know. We were exploring the small house, unpacking our things and joking around. Everyone seemed pretty nice. There were at least six of us, pretty much evenly divided between male and female though the numbers changed a little throughout the dream. A couple of people cooked dinner and made it gluten-free for me, which went fine. It was spaghetti and meatballs. We ate it while we watched this really dumb movie and people were making plans to go to another movie after dinner. It was getting late and I wasn't sure I should go, since I was exhausted and getting sleepy. I finished my dinner and looked around at everyone else, seated at two tables in our living room, which had no other furniture. I spotted one of the people who had cooked it. She looked a lot like one of my high school friends, even though she was supposedly a different person. She had seemed really nice so I thought I should get her attention (she was sitting at the other table) so maybe we could talk instead of going to the movie. As I watched, she started falling asleep sitting there, and I was interested to know if she had Narcolepsy too. I finally managed to signal her and so after dinner when everyone left, we ended up sitting in one of the bedrooms, talking. I kept trying to start my explanation of Narcolepsy because I really wanted to know if she had it, but she kept taking the conversation in some other direction every time I had an opportunity. Like, she asked me if I drank and I told her no, I can't because of my medication. But then she completely changed the subject to her stories and characters, which was really cool because we had that in common, so I gave up and figured I'd just end up explaining it all later. We were sitting on the floor, leaning over this sheet of notebook paper on which she had written the names of places in a world she had invented, and I was trying to pronounce them. I was happy because I had a new friend. And then I suddenly found myself in my bed, awake. I was really confused because I had been so positive I had actually been talking to this new friend. It took me a moment to figure out it was a dream.
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