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As I prepare to lay my head down, pray, and then sleep, some little *tick* is forming. If you have ever had warnings of an impending migraine too, you know what I mean. But this is a little different. Whether I remember it or not, tonight I will dream of war. How do I know? I just know. I finally know why, sometimes, I struggle to not sleep. It creeps up on me though, the realization. Some part of my mind really hates these, though consciously I have become accustomed to them. I have seen and created many corpses. Some of the corpses I see have been allies, close friends, brothers really. I have had to crawl over corpses to get out of line of sight. I can smell them, on my clothes even after I have departed. Once you get that in your nose, it does not leave for a long time, even if it does not really get on you, it is all you can smell. Gruesome pictures do not bother me, movie or real. Not anymore. Not even real life events shake me. I have seen piles and seeming thousands of dead.
My question is this, is it common to feel textures, to smell even faint things like blood but to include muck, plant life, oil, gasoline, and even spice in the wind? Is it common to sense the cloying nature of high humidity? Do most dream so strongly?
My dreams are often so very vivid. Though too, they are not quite movie like. When the action begins, the scene is very choppy. I cannot always tell what is going on. Hearing usually goes out as well. I can track a few things, my allies, where most of the incoming fire is coming from, and my own general location. Sometimes they are harrowing, sometimes they are of good times before fighting, or after. This set of dreams cannot be changed, as I do with other dreams.
I know they will happen tonight. They have been happening more and more for a while now. They are the same, the same people, the same events, sometimes I see things I missed before, or a slightly different time segment, of about 6 or 8 different incidences, but the scenes themselves never change, nor the actors.
The dreams I can remember, standard dreams, are vivid as well. At least as far as color, sound, and maybe textures, but to a much more minor depth. While flying, for example, I can feel the wind. When bending steel, I can feel the silky glassy cool nature of the metal. Or I might smell a woman's perfume, feel her soft skin and warmth through it, or feel her hair brush by if she is sitting close and turns her head to look at something. I rarely, twice in my life I think, have had actual sexual dreams, so that is not a thing. I simply wonder how weird it is to have such intense dreams, and the dreams of war (apparently with no real cause)?
After trying to figure out why I did not want to go to bed, now I know. I am plum exhausted, a bit from fighting sleep and a bit from a active day. I hope this even makes sense. *crashing into keyboard* But hoping for thoughts, or even answers, too.
Oh well, time to march off to bed. Pun, sadly, intended.
Good night.
Doom,
ReplyDeleteSugar, I does hope ya got some sleep.
I read back a ways to see what all is goin' on--an' read yore revelation too. Seems ya's made wise choices recently an' have found the better road. This better path is through the grace of God it seems.
Ain't gonna go into some long drawl on the topic, jes a quick point:
Gender Identity Disorder happens in early life to 2-3 year olds. It is not genetic, but a learned defense against a deeper anxiety. It shure as hail ain't the chile's fault. What is remarkable is how ya's figgered out that the best path is the one youse now on--I'se pleased fer ya.
But what I ain't got straight is
does ya have ADD? WHy's you takin' Ritalin? Why is ya tired and feelin' muscle weakness?
On huntin'--heh, ain't it funny how ya is safer whar' the population is armed to the hilt?
Ezra huh? A whole lot of lessons in thar'!!
I did sleep, and well. I do not remember the dreams and my body is not sore either, oddly. The dreams can sometimes leave me sore, or even hurt.
ReplyDeleteNo, I do not have ADD. My main difficulty, starting in the Navy (why I am disabled), is actually perpetual and extreme exhaustion. I did not understand that earlier, when it started, but I do now. It was labeled 'bipolar' because when I tried to live normally, I would have to push so hard to do it that I seemed manic, and, of course, I would crash. Some of that is due to trauma, some of it to something else. After trying all the medicine they have for it, and realizing it did not work, I quit all medication (psychotropics, and I refuse those to this day), maybe 10 to 12 years ago. I did fairly well, and was actually improving.
Then my blood pressure became a problem, so they tried medicine on me. Most of it exacerbated my exhaustion, actually all of it did. It would cause me to physically sleep 18 hours a day, up to even three days in a row, and would compound my exhaustion so that I could do very little. And there were other terrible side effects. We went through 12 regimens, different high blood pressure medicine groups, and I wiped out of two semesters of college while they initially told me to just keep going and that it would work out. I threw away their pills after messing with them and the pills for 3 to 4 years (and it was not helping the blood pressure, since I couldn't stay awake to take it regularly, or even think straight to do so). Finally, when I told them I had had enough, they said they might try Ritalin, to help offset the added exhaustion of the medicine (I had not even know that was an option!). It worked quite well, I mean hugely successfully. Then my doctor moved, a new doctor came in (who was, honestly, a jerk). Not only was he quite rude to me personally (I did not know him from Adam, if he was joking I didn't get it), he then teased about taking away the Ritalin. Not being sure if I was on real meds or placebos, I quit the V.A., and paid for a private doctor, I could barely afford it but did so to finish up the classes I was in the middle of taking. That ended up being too expensive for the longrun so I quit that and then moved to Utah just recently. To live or die, sort of.
I was doing so well here, that when I began setting up the V.A. dental and eye (since I had to go through a primary for initial consults), I allowed my primary to talk me back into going back on high blood pressure medicine, to see if I would do better out here on them. It was a tough two or three weeks, daily fevers, headaches nearing migraine strength, a very sore and stiff body, sleep problems, etc. Most of that has passed, but the added exhaustion has not. So, Ritalin, which acts as a minor stimulant, could help me get more active, again, and lose weight and get fit that way.
It is hard to describe a little, for me. It sort of needs to be the whole story or it does not seem to make sense. Or, at least, the story as I understand it. I am not a medic, just the guinea pig with a few notions of my own, and some solid realizations.
It is extremely rare for me to dream with that level of detail and realism. Mostly I have disjointed impressions, some sequences that seem to make some sense in the morning, but not the sensual detail you describe.
ReplyDeleteI've even taken some bodily damage in my dreams and awaken sore from them, or pretty much sprained my foot in a dream only to feel the need for a doctor to look at it as it was sore a week later (with nothing near my feet to kick at night). I did not know they couldn't do much for sprains.
ReplyDeleteYep, pretty intense. I wake up tired if I do a lot of work, or hiking, or such in my dreams. Of course, the normal nightmares and dreams are entertainment for me though. They are better than movies because I can also touch, smell, and all. Especially since I can change them if there is poor acting, or I did not want to have some part of it happen. Though editing sort of blows some of the entertainment aspect.
Well not quite to that level, but i do know that sometimes when i'm running or something in a dream, i wake up feeling incredibly tired, even though i didn't do a damn thing.
ReplyDeleteMK,
ReplyDeleteYep, doesn't that irk you though? I feel gyped!