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.