Nightmares

     Last night, I had a nightmare. When I awakened from it, my heart was pounding, and I couldn’t move (paralyzed by fear?). As I lay there, I thought about everything but the dream’s details because I knew that if I thought about the specifics of the dream, I would make things worse for myself.

     One thought I concentrated on was how my heart was doing. It was pounding, but my thought was that while it was pounding, it wasn’t beating irregularly. Before heading off to dreamland, my heart was experiencing PVCs (Premature Ventricular Contractions). PVCs occur when the heart beats prematurely – a beat or two that occurs before they are supposed to. It feels like a racing heart, but it’s not. Since I’m in the throes of menopause, I’m used to my PVCs occurring sometimes. They happen when I’m stationary, not moving, not walking, not active. I take magnesium taurate to reduce the occurrence of PVCs. Despite the reduction, I still experience them occasionally. After a disturbing dream, a pounding but regular heartbeat is good news to me because I know that, eventually, the strong beats will subside and return to normal. 

  

     I don’t often have nightmares. To get to sleep, I take melatonin. Sometimes, melatonin causes nightmares or vivid dreams. Last night was my lucky night!

     I have been experiencing a great deal of stress lately, okay, not just lately, but ongoing for the past three years. From moving to a new place (three years ago) to grieving over the deaths of pets and family members (as recent as June of this year), I have been under duress. As far as the grieving goes, I have not had a good cry since the death of one of my cats (Bella, Nov. 15, 2012).

     My most recent stress would be trivial in other people’s minds – setting up and making my semi-annual dental appointment. I do not look forward to these once-every-six-months-teeth-cleaning appointments. I also don’t believe I’m alone in this feeling. My problem, lately, is getting up in the morning to make that appointment. I already have to awaken in the morning to get ready and go to work. Making the dental appointment requires me to get up earlier than my usual time (of 9:30 AM).

     Most people I know would scoff at that time and consider it to be late. I am a night owl, through and through. There’s no changing that for me. Trust me; I’ve tried many times to convert to the morning lark routine. I can keep that up for roughly three to four days before I revert to my night owl-ness.

     Back to the dental appointment, I missed that appointment, so, now, I’m stressed because I have to reschedule it, which is just as stressful as missing it. At least, after I’ve had my teeth cleaned, I know I can relax for another six months. This morning, upon realizing I overslept the appointment, I complained, to no one in particular, about having to go in the first place. We go to get our teeth cleaned twice a year, but don’t we already have clean teeth? Don’t we brush and floss after every meal, every snack, every time we put something in our mouths? I know this is irrational thinking, brought on by anger at having missed that all-too-important visit. However, when my life is turned upside-down, even for a brief moment, rationalization (or, rather, irrationalization) creeps in and takes over my normal thought processes.

     I missed that appointment not just because I overslept. I missed it because I had a nightmare that made me lose precious moments of sleep. I knew I was already going to lose precious hours of sleep when I went to sleep at 3 AM and had to get up by 8 AM. The nightmare exacerbated the problem for me. I knew that getting up at 8 AM would make me extremely tired by the time my 8 PM class started (and worse so when it ended about 2 hours later). Subconsciously, I ruined that appointment for myself. I talked (and dreamed) myself out of it, didn’t I?

     Because mornings are bad for me, anyway, I’m going to request an afternoon appointment that I know I can make (between classes). I still won’t be looking forward to it, but, at least, I’ll be able to go and get it over with just for another six-month-peace-of-mind.

     For me, then, nightmares are not simply bad dreams during sleep. My nightmares comprise the stressful moments in my life. By all means, these moments are not as bad as they could be. I feel blessed with what I have, and I am, certainly, not suffering great misfortunes in life. I’m just saying that the stresses that have been building are becoming a burden for me, and if I don’t do something soon to eradicate it, I could become physically ill. I’ve experienced stress-induced illness before: from the common cold (twice in a four-month period) to a rash on my hands that could only be healed by antibiotics and a prescribed cream to a bilateral, bacterial inner ear infection with side effects that took several months to heal.

     Now, my quest is to find positive ways to deal with the stress. Prayer is a good way to relieve stress. I’ve always asked God to help me through life. I’ve always thanked Him for the blessings He has given me. He has not and will never let me down. Blogging is another way to release stress. I love to color (yes, color). I have a set of designs (mandalas) I could print and color. In the past, that has worked to help relieve stressful moments. I know, too, that I probably need to cry my eyes out to deal with the deaths in my family, and the best way I know of to do that would be to watch a sad, heart-wrenching movie. I guess that’s the best place to start – to look for a good, but sad, heart-wrenching flick.