One of my more disturbing ramblings...
7-17-03 I Detest Sleep
Have you ever wondered what hell would really be like? Sometimes I wonder whether it would be immense physical torture day in and day out, but sometimes I imagine it would just be one of your pet peeves that isn't so bad from time to time, but after thousands of years might be truly miserable. Pain doesn't quite seem so logical because it's not as if you have a body, and therefore no nerves with which to feel. I suppose it could be emotional abuse, but then again, all the chemicals that control your emotions died with your body. And wouldn't you just become numb or immune to your peeves like you learn to do in real life? Could hell just be dreary weather all the time? They could call it Seattle then, but people would be dumb enough to choose to live there. What's that Robin Williams movie where he goes to heaven and his wife goes to hell? Is it What Dreams May Come? I really liked how they portrayed hell in that movie- desolate and without hope, like being caught in one of your nightmares when you don't know you're going to wake up, and when you do wake up, you tremble all over with so much adrenaline coursing through your body that you can't breathe and want desperately to be able to climb into your parents bed, but you think they're already dead, grotesquely murdered in front of your eyes only moments ago- so vivid was the dream. Hell would be different though; maybe it wouldn't even be a nightmare, but that moment of pure terror and cold sweat just before you fully regain consciousness and just open your mouth to scream, knowing no sound will come out. Or am I just the odd one out? Does no one else have those dreams?
I wondered, because I do- all the time. To the point even where I tried to stop sleeping for two days, but I got yelled at for hurting myself and sat in my dark room for a few hours and eventually fell asleep just a few more. I didn't dream at all in that time, but every moment I felt such great fear that I might dream that I woke up again. Even now I put off going to bed for as long as I can, be it an hour or only a couple of minutes because I am so afraid that I might dream. I so rarely have good dreams or even decent ones as of late. It seems I'm always being chased by a myriad of grotesqueries.
For several years it was vicious raptors in the rain and mud and dark; I finally got rid of that one by pulling an huge machete out of nowhere and destroying every beast in sight, but that only opened the portal to further nightmares of aliens, police chases on foot for a crime I didn't commit that was worthy of the death sentence, hideous wars and nuclear explosions, and the demises of everyone I loved and held dear that somehow seemed my fault, though I was helpless to deter. Yeah, those are always fun. I've also had sickeningly vivid ones of me committing some disgusting act and hurting someone else, they're not as common, but bad enough, certainly the last ones I'd like to 'talk about.' They say you can't feel pain when you are dreaming, but you don't know that you aren't. And you do feel mental pain and emotional stress.
I looked up the difference between night terrors and nightmares, and I don't know which these are. Only about half the symptoms seem right for night terrors, so I don't think it's worth seeing someone about, which means I just have do deal with it- waking up more tired than I went to sleep, or not sleeping all together simply to avoid the emotional strain. It doesn't happen every night, or even often enough for me to pinpoint any of it, but it is bad enough that I'm actually usually pretty afraid to go to sleep.
My family wonders why I have to have it pitch dark in my room- it's because even the tiniest light from an alarm clock or something throws shadows which become my fears and everything I dream about at night. One time I woke up to find hundreds and hundreds of ants swarming all over my bed. It didn't make any sense; I knew it had to be a dream, so I woke up again. They were still there. I couldn't brush them away or escape or move anywhere; I couldn't even make myself wake up. I'm always afraid I'll see something like that again in the shadows, and sometimes I do. I don't sleep much or at least not very well when I'm at a friend's house because there is always a light on somewhere.
Studies have actually shown that it's better to get too little sleep than too much, 6 hours rather than 10, so I don't stress too much about not sleeping. I'll sleep when I'm dead, right? I figured it out last night; for every dream I have, about 2 more nightmares follow it, so I've really come to hate dreaming all together because I know what's to come. I've never really liked dreams anyway because they are only dreams and fade into nothing as soon as you wake.
Dreams
When you get tired of the world and how it seems,
Just slip away into your dreams.
For it's a position where nothing is real
All on your mind, in dreams you will feel.
This is a place where your fantasies come true,
And where the main character is always you.
Sometimes our dreams scare us away,
Other times they leave us happy all day.
So the next time you go to fall fast asleep,
Remember that when you close your eyes,
You are entering a world
Of nothing but lies.
I didn't write that, but I really do like it because it is so truthful. Which brings me around to why I hate sleep- nightmares obviously, and even dreams, too, and I always feel like I'm missing something that's happening when I go to bed or like there's something more constructive I could be doing than sleeping. I really hate it. That's why I started sneaking out a lot. I didn't do much, but at least I did something and usually with someone else, too, so I didn't feel like I was missing as much. I'm more comfortable even just sitting around and doing absolutely nothing than I am sleeping.
"I detest sleep. I've better things to do. Besides, I find it frightening to awaken and be uncertain- unsure of everything you remember about life not being just part of a dream. Waking means I've slept, and sleep dissolves what certainty I have left." -Nny
And that's exactly how I feel. I couldn't have said it better myself, at least not in so few words.
So how do you make nightmares go away? You'd think after so many years I would've figured it out or become used to it as an inescapable aspect of my life.