dreams

I can’t sleep. I realize that midnight is pretty early to claim any sort of insomnia, but it’s well past my normal bedtime, so I feel like I SHOULD be able to go to sleep. So anyway, I asked myself, “Tory, what do you normally do when you can’t sleep?” The answer? Write. I’m not sure why I always turn to writing when I can’t sleep, or when I’m upset about something… It just seems to be what I do. Disclaimer: My best writing is NOT done in this state of mind. Readers beware. Hahaha… But, I do have a real warning. What I’m about to share is a little awkward, and may make you see me in a different light. I hope that you’ll extend a bit of understanding, and not judge me for what I’m about to write.

Since I can’t sleep, but we’re on the topic, I figured I would write about dreams. I have tried for months to write about my dreams, but each time I have tried, I have felt a little like a lunatic. I also haven’t been able to articulate really well what exactly is going on. But, since I have nothing better to do on a Friday night at midnight, I figured I would try. Maybe it’ll be a series of writings… who knows.

Some of you may know this about me, but a few months ago, I was severely plagued with dreams. Ok, “severely plagued’ may be a bit dramatic, but in all honesty, that’s what it felt like. For a good two months, I had multiple dreams every single night, all of which were extremely vivid. And they left me utterly exhausted the next day. Some of them were just strange, while some of them were dark, and even violent. I would often wake up distraught and frustrated. A lot of times, I was able to link my dreams to what had recently been going on in my life, or things I had recently seen/heard. Usually, they were jumbled up a bit, but most of the time I could figure out why I dreamt about the things I did. I tried to eliminate watching intense/scary/violent type things, and also was careful about the conversations I would have, but nothing seemed to work. And there were other times where I couldn’t link my dreams to anything – I was completely confused on why I had them.

But something I find both interesting and frustrating is that ever since I was a really little kid, I have had violent dreams. I am not entirely sure why as a small child I was dreamt the things I did, but this fact has bothered me for quite some time. I have also often wondered why I have never met anyone else who’s struggled with the same thing. Sometimes, I am embarrassed to share what I dream about because I feel like people will judge me or think that I have some sort of dark side. But I often wonder if this is one of the enemy’s greatest ways of getting to me…

See, one of the unfortunate side affects of these dreams is that they stick with me for a while. During the following day, it will feel to me as though the dream really happened. For example: Back in the day when I used to work at Ridgewood, I had a dream that my good friend (and boss) and I had a HORRENDOUS fight where we were both yelling at each other and saying awful things to one another. The strange thing is, at the time, I had no tension towards him in real life. Things were great in our friendship – so the dream really felt as though it came out of nowhere. The next morning, I told myself, “It wasn’t real. It didn’t happen. You have no reason to feel this way.” But no matter how hard I tried to rationalize it, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself it wasn’t real and I had no reason to feel the way I did, I felt miserable. I felt anxious about seeing my friend. I felt angry about the things he said. I knew it wasn’t real – so why did I feel the way I did? It’s like when I have a dream about someone I haven’t seen in a long time – the entire next day, I long to see that person. Or if I have a dream about something I aspire to do – when I wake up, I’m frustrated that I don’t or can’t do it.

Sometimes I think this is the enemy’s way of getting to me… He wedges his little ideas inside my dreams, causing me to feel anxiety, fear, loneliness, and frustration, not to mention the exhaustion I feel after a night of dreaming. Sometimes I wonder if that’s just one of the ways he attacks me and/or my faith…

I don’t know what it is, but dreams have a temporary yet powerful hold on my emotions. I am not sure how to work through that or how to make it less of a reality for me, but it is indeed something to deal with. Just the other night, I had a dream that, at the time, was really scary. I remember waking up at 1:30 in the morning, and thinking to myself, “I really ought to write this down.” At the time, I was so out of it, and so shaken, that I decided not to write it down. I shared the dream with a friend today, and even as I told it, I thought to myself, “It doesn’t sound THAT scary…” And yet, it seemed so real at the time and early the next morning.

However, it also got me thinking about something…

I have decided that I am going to start documenting my dreams. For what purpose? I have no idea. I don’t necessarily believe that there are people in the world who can analyze my dreams. But there’s part of me that wants to document what I dream for two reasons: A) There are a LOT of them, and they’re for sure interesting. Plus, it might help explain to people a little bit why I am so frustrated with all my dreaming and why I get so worked up over them. And B) I’d be interested in seeing if there are any patterns/trends in what I’m dreaming about. I have already identified one trend in my dreams (which is too icky to share), and I’d be interested in seeing if there are more patterns or trends.

I’m not sure if I’ll be great at keeping up with documenting my dreams, but I do think it’d be interesting to try. I’ve thought about doing a sleep study as well, just to see what they think about all the crazy brain activity I have while I sleep.

Maybe it’s just as simple as being cursed with a wild imagination? If only that imagination would come alive during the day, and not at night!

Anyway, that’s my story about dreaming… With all this talk about dreaming, it’ll be interesting to see if I have any crazy dreams tonight!

(image taken from www.mindcafe.org)