Wednesday, December 14, 2016

There Are Dreams And Then There Are Dreams

I've made no bones about the fact that when I'm on an antidepressant, my dreams become very different. Sometimes they are so stressful that I've often wondered if the relief the medication brings to me is worth the dreams it also brings which in and of themselves are quite stressful and often cause me to wake up in a strange and extremely unsettled mood.
Last night I had two dreams which were so long and involved with color and with scent and with taste and with story line and with moments of fear that I really had nothing to compare them with.
The first one was the stranger and more complex and I figured out in the dream that it WAS a dream and that was interesting. As characters in the dream spoke, I could actually realize that I was the one directing their dialogue and sometimes it took me a while to come up with it. And some of it was simply horrible and the vast houses with the many undiscovered rooms were there and I was presented with messes to clean up and and falling-apart places in the house and although I KNEW it was a dream and kept reassuring myself that none of this was real, it was still disturbing. It wasn't until an extremely frightening situation in the dream occurred that I was able to wake up and I found my husband checking his phone to see what time it was so I suppose that his sitting up in the bed was what had actually woken me and I was so relieved although the very clarity and realness of the dream left me a bit unconvinced that I had truly woken up.
The second dream was not as worrisome but dragged on and on to no resolve, no resolution and I still, hours after getting up, feel a tiny bit disoriented.

I am listening to a book by David Mitchell who wrote The Cloud Atlas called Slade House and it has elements of dream-like reality and so I'm sure I was channeling some of that. It's a ghostly story and well-written and I'm enjoying it immensely but I do not want the elements of it to invade my sleep in such a way. Normally, it would not.

Anyway, that's the report this morning. It is gray and gloomy and my friend will be here soon and we'll be driving to a little town in Georgia to eat our lunch.

Brains are complicated things and I wish we understood them better. it is an unhappy conundrum to have to trade one form of insanity for another.


  1. So interesting, that you understood in your dream that you were directing the action, but still couldn't always come up with it right away. It strikes me, in the mood I'm in this morning, as a metaphor for life, or maybe it is not a metaphor, but life exactly, except in our waking dream we haven't yet figured that out. I am glad you have some ease during the day at least. Hugs, sweet friend.

  2. Yes, 37paddington, I think that is it, exactly. In a rare dream like that (phew!) we get a glimpse behind the curtain of Oz and see that the "director" is just the little frightened mind that gives all the meaning to everything (which is it's job, just like in every-day reality) but takes on way too much responsibility for making everything right (which it is in no way equipped to do). What a dream! Our minds take on way too much, and we never learned early enough how to take care of them, the poor things. They seem to be tasked with impossible chores (messy rooms in vast houses) as well as the greatest burden of all which is to serve as a proxy for an individual's consciousness, the "me." What a fantastic dream...not only does it reveal that we are not the poor overworked mind at the presumed center of our universe, but it hints at what we really are...the timeless awareness of the whole thing! Some deep featureless knowing was there, like it always is, aware of the actors, the director, the entire flow of the play. Priceless dream!

  3. I am sorry to hear about the dreams invading your thoughts when awake. I hate it when that happens, unless it is a good dream. But somehow it's usually the bothersome ones that hang in there. I hope your lunch date will chase it all away.

  4. That last sentence is awesome. I love hearing about your dreams, although if they disturb you I am sorry!

  5. That does seem to be an oxymoron (if I used that correctly) of antidepressants. Some aspects of medical science have come so far, some being the operative word. Why the heck couldn't they have weeded this out? A question that really needs no answer, it's obvious.
    I hope it straightens out soon and that you don't have to experience this. And I'm sad that you feel tired and disoriented from them.

    And yes-yes, Mary, that last sentence is awesome!

  6. Well Dear friend we dream the same dreams. Endless undiscovered rooms needing to be dealt with and knowing l am dreaming. Fear too sometimes. I also dream of derelict urban landscapes then round a corner a small thriving community reclaiming the run down buildings with small ventures. Wishful thinking mind comforting me in this scary world? It is actually happening in this country but l was dreaming it before. Visions of a better world? Am not on AD meds though! Love to ya anyway up. Enjoy Mexico. Lovely way to avoid Christmas. We are stripping the wallpaper of a ceiling here to avoid. Think your way is best. Would love to take you for Afternoon Tea. Love that your friend makes it. I don't but l know where they do. Right by the sea where l live in England and in NYC. Love Maggi. Awake all night again Full moon!

  7. I like David Mitchell as a novelist but I would not want to live in one of his books! I'd talk to your doctor about the dreams. It's important for them to know about effects like that. Maybe they could adjust the meds if need be...?

  8. I woke up dreaming too though my dream was much more mundane. I was trying to find a heavy rake to smooth out the ground after I cleared the wildflower patch and people kept bringing me weird things instead.


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