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Insomnia
I seem to be having more problems with insomnia in recent months than I ever recall having before. Yesterday, the Scientist was having day surgery to trim up a torn meniscus and I was to get up earlier than usual with him to accompany him to the hospital. That was all fine and I even made sure to shift my wake up times to accommodate that change. Unfortunately, on Tuesday night I just couldn’t get to sleep properly and then I kept moving in and out of sleep stages, so I suspect it was a case of not going into deep sleep at any point. Strangely enough I did keep drifting into some sort of sort of sleep where I would have the most bizarre dreams that seemed to come to an abrupt stop. I guess this was REM sleep even though it wasn’t satisfying. Something to check out later on, I guess.
After I dropped off the Scientist, I dropped into the office of my gynecologist that was in the medical centre at the same hospital to see if my test results were in yet. The doctor hadn’t seen them yet but I was told the biopsy came back benign and I could come back at 1pm if I wanted to discuss it with him. If it was all good I really didn’t need to discuss it unless he had anything to tell me about it. I just wanted to know if it was clear for peace of mind. I didn’t really think there would be a problem since my symptoms seemed to fit quite well with hormonal shifts I’d had before.
I went home but my attempts to nap were not successful at all. I did sleep quite briefly once and had another weird dream that ended quite soon after it started. Even though I tried to just stay still for a while in hopes of sleep taking over, I gave up after a while, only to discover I must have only been asleep for a minute or two as it wasn’t much later than when I’d last checked the time. I gave up sleep by mid-afternoon and started drinking lots of tea in hopes it would revitalise me. I also took a shower that seemed to be really helpful and just kept busy the rest of the time.
I didn’t get the call to pick up the Scientist until nearly 8pm and by this time I think the caffeine may have kicked in. Fortunately the roads were pretty clear by this time so it was easy enough to get there and back. The Scientist came out of surgery just fine and he’d been waiting for ages to be processed to go home by the meager evening staff that had replaced the day staff.
When we got home, he ate a bit and then went to bed. I stayed up, playing the game of Civilization I’d started hours earlier while waiting for the call. Soon it was quite late again and I was still feeling rather wired but went to bed. Sleep last night wasn’t a lot better and included strange dreams that I’d wake up from. I should point out that there weren’t bad dreams but seemed rather elaborate and interesting. In fact, I find it hard to imagine how so much information could fit into such short periods of sleep. I did eventually get into some deeper sleep but woke up rather early today.
I’m not too sure about the cause of the insomnia on this occasion but I wonder if the fact I missed a couple days of my anxiety medication is related. I had some bad effects once before when missing this medication but I don’t remember exactly what my sleep was like at that point. I called my doctor’s office to see about getting a new script and was given a bit of a hard time by the receptionist who seemed to think I needed to see the doctor to get it redone. It’s a shame I didn’t realize it was down to the end when I saw my gp last month or I’d have asked for that to be replaced when I was getting a new script for my thyroid medication. I suspect it was only the fact I had been in so recently that persuaded this woman to put it through although she didn’t guarantee it. She said they’d call me if there was a problem. I haven’t heard so hopefully it should be ready tomorrow. Anyway, this is one of the same medications in the same dose that Game Fanatic takes, so I took one of his tablets and will replace it once I am sorted out. I don’t know if the medicine is making a difference but it does feel like I will be able to sleep tonight. Will have to see what happens when I actually get to bed.
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Strange dreams
I’ve had some pretty bizarre dreams the past few days, many disturbing and some quite interesting.
I don’t recall the dream from two nights ago very well now but it seemed to revolve around a few family members who have already died. At one point in the dream my grandmother appeared, or I should say her presence was noted. The strange part of the dream was I was focused on the top of the line electric toothbrush she had in her bathroom. Whatever it was, it had all the bells and whistles included. I honestly couldn’t say anything specific about it though. Anyway, what’s particularly odd about the association is my grandmother had worn dentures for most of the years I knew her and thus didn’t use a toothbrush. That one was odd, bizarre but not bothersome.
In another point of the dream I was engaged in a conversation with a cousin who died several years ago. She was only three years older than me and she was 39 when she died so I guess that was about thirteen years ago. First of all it is weird to think that much time has passed since then. Anyway, Â we were talking and I mentioned to her that I missed both her parents, who have also died. They both died a few years after she died, so that was kind of weird. But within the dream I also said to her that she had also died, before her parents. So I was talking to a dead person within my dream. And it wasn’t like talking to a ghost or anything like that. She appeared quite substantial and it seemed almost normal to be speaking to her. That one was rather disturbing and I do wonder what triggered all that.
Last night was a different sort of disturbing with me falling asleep and immediately going into not so much a dream as an assault of disturbing images. I couldn’t say what they were but each time this happened I woke myself up. I must have not been quite asleep when the “dream” would start. I had other disturbances to my sleep, unrelated to dreams. I had a cough that started up and wouldn’t settle down so I got up and got a drink of water, sat up for a little while, then returned to bed. At another point, one of the dogs woke me and seemed to want to go out but then she didn’t. I don’t think I had much proper sleep for several hours.
Then towards the end of my sleep, I had a totally different sort of dream. It was a perfectly normal dream at the beginning with some normal sort of happenings mixed in with a few oddities, as happens often. At some point though, it seemed to shift into some sort of fantasy story, of the young adult/ older child sort, with children or teenagers involved in some sort of tasks. It seemed to progress quite nicely until there were obstacles place along the way by some less pleasant sort of character(s). Eventually I started to wake and couldn’t sustain what was happening so that was essentially the end of it. I must admit to liking this last dream far more than any of the others.
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Weirdness in a dream
As sometimes happens, I woke this morning after a series of strange dreams. I’m still contemplating one of the last ones as I have managed to remember some of its essence. But it’s the last one that has confounded me most, even though I only remember one part of it. In the dream I have somehow managed to grow garlic on a tree. It’s not even a matter of growing a tree of garlic either. It’s as though the garlic plant has been grown as in already grown  tree. At the end of the dream, I take a single clove from the garlic and another person in the dream does the same. After that, the branch it is growing on rises up out of reach, as though great weight has been lifted from it. The garlic is hanging off the tree, much as a spurball hangs off a sweet gum tree. Very bizarre stuff going on there. I have no idea what led to this part of the dream. It may well have been one where a totally new “story” abruptly starts in the middle of another one. Anyway, I woke up just after this bit. Perhaps my logical side was questioning its validity. :D