Maybe I should rename this blog “Pattern and Despair”?
Nightmares have moved back in.
They dogged me for the first thirty years of my life — vivid and terrifying. After years of interventions (therapy, Rolfing, hypno-therapy, rebirthing, sessions with psychics, trauma journaling), they stopped. It seemed their job was done.
Last night’s:
I am walking along the edge of a frozen pond when a hole opens up and a man with a male teenager emerges. In the dream that’s not weird. The older male is holding a clipboard and pretending to need directions. I nearly instantly understand that he is trafficking in humans and turn and run. He yells after me, like what is my problem. “It’s the teen aged boy!” I yell back, hoping I can out run him.
Also this:
I am participating in what is a normal ritual, carving hunks of flesh off of Jennifer Aniston. It’s not clear if there is a purpose or significance to this, but in the dream its ordinary and not life threatening. She’s wrapped in cloth and it’s hard to see. There are three or four of us at it. She feels her breast after a while and asks me, “Did you take my nipple?!” Turns out I did but I hadn’t meant to. I just couldn’t see where I was working. Now she is damaged.
Woke to NPR and honestly the first five stories qualify as waking nightmares.
I hope this is the flu talking. Today I will walk the dog and make dinner, which is twice as much as what I did yesterday.
Update: the beech against a blue sky is really something.
And, even though I’m machine piecing, takin’ it slow with C’s quilt.
oh. ok. well. uhg. hey…. this too shall pass. it be the flu, surely. fever induced holdover. but that nipple scene. shit. I LOVE it. I’m still processing that. glad you wrote it down. please collage it – not necessarily every detail cuz you could offend someone. but what if you were able to de-spell the source. only you can do that. exorcise it. please, with honey cakes, bleach it out of your conscience. whatever it takes. love and peace dearest. love and kindness are you. you *are* love and kindness since forever, at the foundation of your being, your actions, your art. dreams are cleansing in and of themselves, right? right.
You are the angel on my shoulder. 💕
aw.
The waking nightmare … “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear”
His demagoguery is going to have real and negative consequences. And everyone knows it.
(((Dee))) these are dangerous days, a relevant book is ‘A Long Petal of the Sea’ by Isabel Allende, I loved reading her words about the election when Pinochet was voted out of Chile by the people after 17 long years, I wish I had written it down but the gist of it was everyone in the country got out and voted, it would be good for the world to see America vote Trump out while you still have a democracy.
So many of us are determined to vote trump out. I had no idea, tho, that the campaigns would be so stressful. It’s too bad that all these guys approaching 80 thought it would be a good idea to run. But that’s what we got. Much will be determined in Super Tuesday and I’m not sure I’m gonna like the result. My to read list is long right now and I spend so much time consuming need, my fiction reading time has suffered, but I did notice you recommend this book elsewhere.
Wow. Those are some dreams. Waking or asleep, it’s a nightmare. I hope you feel better real soon. xo
Thanks Nancy. You must be just getting off to work?
Mine are always about dark streets and being lost and not remembering where I live and having to pee and no toilets. They seem to have stopped but I don’t miss the terror I felt.
I used to get bladder-urgent dreams when I had to actually pee. Being lost holds nowhere near the terror for me as being hunted. But I could see how with the right conditions, it might be so.
omg your nightmares are so scary! maybe sharing them with us helps ease some of the nasty after-feelings…..I rarely have nightmares but when I do I can feel so unnerved and dishevelled for hours after waking up
so sorry to read you have suffered from them for such a long time
I hope this spell is due to the elections and the flu: meaning it will pass!
sending loving thoughts across the ocean
These haven’t stayed with me all day or even all morning. What has stayed with me is the fear that they’re back. For a longer visit than the flu. Thank you for your loving thoughts. Hope you are staying strong as you care for your parents!
Scary dreams, night and day! I approach my dreams from the premise that everyone/thing in the dream is an aspect of myself. You probably do this anyway.
Yes I learned that method ages ago and it is powerfully revealing. You remind me that I ought to do that in my journal later.
Thank goodness for beech trees and stained-glass cloth … let there be ever more light
Yes. And for The Great British Baking Show.
In dreams, we process the real horror stories that disturb our waking hours, with changed names and faces, altered places and only traces of the original response. I’ve had very few in the past decades, but there was a time when I was haunted by them. Here’s a strategy you might want to try” on waking, smile gently. Make it the smile you imaging indicates you are safe and loved. Then rise and stretch gently, Put music that soothes on while you fix yourself some breakfast. Lastly, write down what you remember in very short images as you have here. Then go for a walk with the dog. Hard times like these require special attention and discipline. This video is a cheerful change of scene you might enjoy-
https://youtu.be/5gNuj8UkyC4
Bless you. Your prescriptions are full of wise care.
Oh, Dee, I hope your virus & nightmares ease soon. For the last couple of years mine were full of trying to hide from, negotiate with or out wit murders/rapists. Exhausting. Things have settled down in the last month, and even dreamt of kittens twice. Wishing you rest, cats/dogs, & fields of flowers, oxo
Mine used to be all rapists and murderers, too. You know, every day kinda stuff. I don’t really have any reason to think these will continue. It’s just notable to have them at all anymore. Kittens would be nice! Or baby goats.
I am sorry you are suffering from nightmares and the fear of nightmares. Perhaps its a literal response to the political situation which is ratcheting up my stress level every day. I join Hazel in wishing you kittens instead. Get well soon.
Thanks Dana. Maybe the fear of the nightmares is outpacing their occurrence just because of history.