More Creepy Nonsense

Last night was kind of nuts. Then again, I've been getting more or less the same amount of nonsense every night this week.

I'll start out with my first of three doses of Xyrem. I'll fall asleep, not dream a damn thing and then wake up to my alarm for dose number two. Then I'll fall asleep again, only this time I'll dream something I don't recall much of later so that it seems like I did still get some actual sleep during this chunk of time, even if I dreamed a little. Then I usually wake up pretty confused to find that my alarm went off half an hour ago and I didn't hear a thing. Then it's down with dose number three, and that's when the nonsense happens. Every night this week it's been crazy, visual, complicated dreams that I'm positive at the time are real. They're part cool, part interesting, and usually part disturbing or creepy. Last night was no exception.

I only remember the very end now, but I know there was a lot more before it. I was sitting at a table with my high school history teacher, coloring something with crayons while we watched DVDs on this old television. The room was very plain and kind of dark. We watched something I liked first, but then it turned into this educational thing about dead bodies. It got stuck on the menu with all these pictures of corpses, and the music was really creepy. Everything kept repeating and I was trying to not look at it, but I couldn't tell my history teacher about my rotting things phobia because I was embarrassed. Eventually she took it out and then we were watching a documentary about the history of Middle Earth (This isn't too surprising as I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan, and have read everything Tolkien wrote multiple times). Most of it was from The Silmarillion, and then my dreams began to twist the stories into new stories, and insert my original characters into them. It was pretty epic and detailed and visually intense. It reached the end of a tale in which everyone died, and suddenly I woke up and realized it had been a dream. That's cool, I thought, as I sat up in my old bedroom- the one in the house we moved out of almost two years ago. I was on my bed, trying to shake off the remains of the dream, and I realized my girlfriend was sitting on the edge of the bed, talking to my mom who was sitting on the floor. My dog came over and licked my hand and I was startled to see that he had shrunk. He was suddenly small enough that I could pick him up with one hand. I think I asked my girlfriend about it, and she acted like it was normal for dogs to shrink randomly, so I figured it was no big deal. Meanwhile, the two white yorkies from my last dream were running around and yapping.

At that point I realized my mouth really hurt. I touched it with my finger and there was blood on it. I realized I had left my nightguard (I don't have one in real life, I just know people that do) on and for some reason this explained the blood. I pulled it out, but it was stuck on my teeth, and my mouth started bleeding more and more. I discovered a lot of black string was also caught in my teeth, but pulling it out just caused more pain and bleeding. I started to panic and ran into the tiny bathroom attached to my room, where I had to hunch over uncomfortably to look in the mirror, because for some reason the ceiling was slanted and low. I looked in the mirror and saw blood dripping out of my mouth, the nightguard half in and black string stuck all in my teeth. I started trying to get them out gently, and to rinse my mouth with some water. The sink was filthy and disgusting, covered in this slimy, leftover food. I was so frightened by my loss of blood that I stood there trying to rinse out my mouth anyway.

And then I actually woke up. It was really hard to shake off the dream. I went into the bathroom, straightaway, just to make sure I wasn't bleeding. Of course everything was fine, but sometimes you just have to check. I slapped my face with cold water and felt a little bit more in the here and now. It wasn't until I had some caffeine with breakfast before I really felt like part of reality.

The Earrings Saga

Just over six weeks ago I got my ears pierced. This was a pretty big feat for me because I have a pretty serious needle phobia. I survived the first piercing and was really proud of myself for not fleeing in terror (which I was definitely in danger of doing at the time). I figured that I had gotten through the worst part and the rest of this would be easy.

Well, the first six weeks passed and I was pretty excited to be able to change out my earrings. On Monday I decided to go ahead and do it in the morning. Before I knew it it was half an hour later, my feet really hurt (how dare I stand up for half an hour!) and my fingers were all sore from gripping the metal backs of the earrings, which were showing no sign of budging. My arms were even sore from holding my hands up, haha. I gave up for the day.

Several days and several attempts later I was seriously wondering if I was stuck with these earrings for the rest of my life. I started talking to friends about it and found out that I probably needed someone to help me. With my only friends in town really busy and both parents away on business I pretty much had to wait. I kept at it anyway though.

Yesterday morning I finally got them out. I was really happy that I had managed to do it all by myself. I got a new pair that looked easy enough to put in and then I found out that the worst was not, in fact, anywhere near over yet.

It was terrifying. I could get one earring halfway in, but I couldn't find the hole in the back. I had no way of seeing it. The scary part was that the digging around in my ear I had to do while trying to find the hole felt way too much like a needle to me. I ended up having a panic attack right there in my bathroom. I refused to give up, which admittedly was pretty impressive at the time, but it ended up just making me feel worse because it just wasn't going to be possible without help. I got really good advice to use neosporin on the earring to dull the pain, but that wasn't until after my disastrous first try to get it in.

I was panicky all day. I was concious of the fact that if I didn't get the new ones in before I went to bed the holes would start to heal shut overnight and all of this would be for nothing, because after how frightened I had been I was pretty sure I wouldn't have the courage to get them pierced a second time.

Luckily my mom got home last night and agreed to help. I ended up on the floor (because when I was standing up I felt like I was going to faint), crying because I was afraid, with my mom leaning over my ear trying to find the hole. It didn't hurt because of the neosporin- it just felt like a needle and I didn't like it. I managed to stay still and finally it went through. Thank god for moms.

I've decided these are staying in for awhile, haha. I'm proud of myself for going through with this though, and I hear that the first time always sucks. And as scared as I was I think next time will be better, and that this will help me to eventually overcome my phobia. Take that, needles!

Needle Scare

Tonight I feel like I've been run over by a freight train. So we'll see how coherent this turns out.

Looking back on it, it wasn't that busy a day. Stressful maybe, but not busy. I didn't do all that much really. But it does go to show how easily I can get screwed by a not so great night's sleep.

The dream started out pretty cool, actually. I was in Japan with my mom, and we went to this shrine where there was a festival going on. We had fun looking at all the nice crafty stuff people were selling, and it looked pretty authentically shrine festival-y except for the absence of lots of sketchy food. I can't really blame my brain for leaving that bit out. We were looking at the jewelry, especially the earrings, and a Japanese woman came up and started talking to me in Japanese, which I managed to keep up with pretty well. She was asking all the typical questions, like how long were we there for, did we come for business or sightseeing, etc etc. The woman talked to my mom in English a little bit though it was difficult for her. Then we parted ways, but apparently we kept seeing the same woman every time we went to the festival (which was three times at least, during the week or two we were there). We did other things around Tokyo but always came back. Then it was our last day there and we talked to the woman for awhile again. And when she left I was sad because she had been really nice and I knew we were about to leave. Then I turned and started looking at books, and ended up picking one up and starting to read it. At that point my dream took a nosedive into extreme creepiness as I read this super-disturbing book that I will spare you the details of, and then I was in the main character's head and things got so scary that I ended up waking up paralyzed, nauseated, staring at my bookshelf and thinking it was someone coming to get me. I slowly realized where I was and it took so much effort to drag my mind away from that horrible dream. I spent awhile fighting to keep my eyelids open. Eventually I gave up and just turned my light on and went back to sleep.

I don't remember dreaming after that, but I woke up earlier than usual and feeling like total crap. I didn't accomplish much this morning. One reason was that I spent most of breakfast having a panic attack, my first one in a long time. I had a pretty good reason though. I had my CT scan today, and was dreading them injecting me with the contrast.

I've mentioned before that I have a pretty bad needle phobia. If you come near me with one, I will cry histerically for awhile. And I was already overloaded from yesterday, when I was at the mall and decided I was going to take the plunge and get my ears pierced. I had decided recently that that would be the first step in any attempt to conquer my needle phobia, since I really like earrings and being able to wear them would be a good reward for being brave and putting up with that same sharp pain that I'm pretty sure is the root of my fear.

Overall I'm glad I did it. It hurt like hell and was really scary, and if my mom hadn't been there I seriously would have fled at the last minute. I'm still not over it though. Besides the pain association, I hate the feeling of having the needle under my skin. And I'm discovering that that same feeling, minus the pain, is what it feels like to have earrings going through my ears. I think feeling that continuously for at least six weeks will be good for me in the long run, because once I'm used to it I may not mind needles as much. But this morning it just added to my growing panic about the scan.

Once the panic attack had run its course I was too exhausted to do much. I talked to friends and then ate lunch, and then it was time to head out.

I got there really early, and then was super nervous and anxious about the needles for the half hour plus that I was sitting in the waiting room. I just wanted to get up and leave. I realized later I really should have brought someone with me. Finally I got called in.

And found out that because I had alerted them to my propensity to be allergic to stuff, they didn't need to inject me with anything. I was actually kind of annoyed, lol, because I had gone through so much. But it was a relief. And it was pretty cool. The machine was massive, and there was stuff inside it spinning around and making wooshing noises. The lady who did my scan was very nice. So it worked out.

Now I have films with cool and creepy pictures of stuff inside my head. You can see bits of my skull and stuff. Awesome!

I spent the rest of my day on the couch, completely worn out. My dad came home and took me to dinner and then grocery shopping. I took a nap as soon as we got back, and I've been on my way out since. I exercised my dog on the treadmill while trying really hard not to nod off while sitting up in a chair. It's not even my bedtime yet and I'm ready to crash.

Fear Factor

I had another interesting dream last night. And by interesting, I mean creeptastic. It featured me hitching a ride from a serial killer dude and his two henchmen who had a truck with rotting dead people piled up in the back. When they offered me a ride I was like, hmm, I wonder if this is a mistake? Oh well! And jumped into the bed of the truck, trying really hard not to look too closely or touch anything. And, haha, they totally just dropped me off where I was going, which was apparently this computer lab where people were animating a tv show. Apparently I was there to help set up for an art show or something. And then there were policemen following the serial killer around, and I was helping them escape for some reason. I ended up helping them out of a window in a really grungey bathroom. Ew.

I really don't know where the whole rotting people thing originated. But I swear to god every dream for awhile there had me finding gross skeletons everywhere. Sometimes they were in crushed up cars, or big Egyptian tombs I was for some reason visiting, or occasionally in my room various places (thanks brain). I honestly can't remember when it started, but I've had a rotten corpse phobia for ages. I must have seen one on tv at some point to start the whole thing off, but for most of my life if I caught even a glimpse of one in a sci fi show or in a movie or in a tv commercial for a show about mummies or whatever, I would end up having nightmares about it for weeks. Finally I figured out it's more about human skulls than anything else- empty eye sockets and grinning teeth. So when I took a drawing anatomy class and we had to draw pieces of skeleton every week, ending with the skull, I got pretty nervous in advance. When it came time to do the skull I could hardly make myself look at the reference in the anatomy book. I ended up crying silently through the entire drawing until it was done, and ever since then it's been easier to deal with. I can now watch Pirates of the Carribbean without covering my eyes and pictures don't so much bother me anymore.

Now if I could just get over all the other ones, haha. Needles freak me out- I feel sorry for people who try to draw blood from me because I sob hysterically for like an hour. Also worms/bugs inside food or people- if I find a bug in a piece of fruit or similar I'm across the room in under a second and refuse to go near it until someone else throws it away. It's weird because anything about like intestinal worms or similar also sends me into a total panic, but worms in the dirt or on the sidewalk don't bother me at all. I even pick them up and move them when I see one in the middle of the sidewalk because I don't want them to get stepped on. But as soon as it's in something else, phobia. Who knows. And by the way, thanks a lot Animal Planet for ruining my afternoon with your Monsters Inside Me ad.

I used to have a driving on highways phobia- I would have a panic attack just thinking about having to do it. But after the skull drawing I decided to start trying to kick my other phobias, and after driving on highways about once or twice a week for the last couple of months I totally seem to have licked it. Take that, highways!

So I dunno. Now I need a pet worm or something? Haha.