last night's nightmares

i remember two nightmares i had last night. it was pretty odd... i'm not sure if that's ever happened to me before. sure, i've probably had more than one nightmare in one night, but the thing with dreams and nightmares is we don't remember most of them. here i am some 13 hours later after i've woken up and i still have a semi clear idea of what was going on.

i don't know what inspired it exactly. i know last night i was part of what may be the worst comedy show i've ever been a part of. it's gotta be up there with one of my worst stand up comedy experiences ever. it was bad... very bad.... it may have been the final straw of a stand up comedy "career" that i've been contemplating putting to an end for some time. i'll most likely delve into the specifics of this more in a future post.

this is about the nightmares. i came home from the comedy show and it was late... and i was getting to bed later than usual on a wednesday night. and i was also hungry so i stuffed my face before i went to sleep. as soon as i was done eating, i hit the bed, not expecting much more to happen than the usual... me going to sleep minutes after hitting the mattress.

but that didn't happen last night. i don't ever suffer from insomnia or any sleeping problems. sleeping is one of those things i've never had an issue with... i pretty much excel at it actually. sometimes it's too easy. but not last night..... last night i tossed and turned for hours.

as hour number three of me not falling asleep approached, i decided to play a cd to see if that would help. i chose radiohead's 'amnesiac,' for two reasons: it was close to me and i didn't have to struggle to find it and i used to listen to this album a lot when it first came out when i would go to sleep. it was like a dark, twisted lullaby.

and it almost worked.... i fell asleep for 20 minutes but woke up again and once more i couldn't go to sleep. i put the cd on repeat just in case i did fall asleep again.... i didn't want the sudden silence that comes with an album ending to wake me up.

i struggled for another 30 minutes or so... and finally i got some sleep... maybe 4 hours altogether. it was broken up by the nightmares though.

the first nightmare was the worst of the two. it was very real feeling. it started with me waking up in my bed. i stood up and then my body froze. i couldn't move anything. i tried talking and i couldn't say anything. then i realized my vision was blurry... really blurry... i only knew i was in my room because i'm so familiar with it. if it had been any other room that i was unfamiliar with, i wouldn't know much about the details of the room due to the extreme blurriness of my vision. i stood there trying my best to move. all i wanted to do was wipe my eyes with my hands to fix my vision. all i wanted to do was say something, ANYTHING, to see if i could talk at all. but i just stood there. all i could do was think. i was very conscious of what was going on....all i could do was think... and all my thinking lead to panic. what was wrong with me? why couldn't i move? how was i ever gonna fix this?

and then i woke up... in my bed... unsure and uneasy because the nightmare had started with me in my bed. but this time i could move my body on command and i could talk out loud and i could see clearly. i heard radiohead playing in the background (that was missing in the nightmare). i knew i was awake. so i tried my best to move on with the night and get back to sleep.

that didn't take too long. but as soon as i feel asleep i fell into another nightmare. this one isn't as severe and the premise is silly.. but the feelings were nightmarish for me. i was a ghostbuster. there were four of us and we were at a large retail store like a walmart or target and there was some kinda ghost in there.... so we cornered it in an aisle and set up some sorta special ghost bomb and told them to evacuate the store immediately. they did. me and the other busters moved back and grabbed shelter from the blast of the bomb.

BOOM!

bomb goes off. me and the other busters run in with our guns and start shooting at the ghost. the bomb didn't kill or hurt the ghost at all. all it accomplished was making the ghost angrier. the ghost started taunting us and telling us it was gonna get us all. me and one of the other busters gave up and started running out of there and the thing chased us. it took the form of a bolt of lightning of sorts bouncing off of walls and chasing after us as we ran down a stairwell. no matter how fast we moved, we couldn't move faster than this lightning bolt ghost. the whole time it was taunting us, telling us we were going to die and it was going to kill us.

and then i woke up. i felt all sorts of fucked up. what could possibly have inspired two nightmares in the same night? i turned radiohead off and tried going back to sleep without music. worked like a charm. i must've been tired.

i woke up a couple hours later in a surprisingly good mood. i don't usually have crappy experiences when it comes to sleeping... that could be the worst, or one of the worst, nights of sleep i've ever had in my life. i was sorta ecstatic to start a new day and not have to worry about it for a while. i figure the hope of a brand new day could fix whatever's wrong and i wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

i'm feeling okay about it all right now. i'm pretty tired so i'm hoping that helps with me getting GOOD sleep tonight. writing this may have helped also... just getting it out there and leaving it here as some sorta purging method to get it completely out of my system.