Dreams are, on the whole, incredibly boring. If I could opt out, I absolutely would.
I am not an astral projection girly–I do not believe that dreams hold some secret or sacred meaning. Thing is, they don’t tell us anything we don’t already know–they can’t. It is, as they say, our party.
If we fixate on a scenario during our waking lives–avoiding it or attracting it–it’s gonna show up in a dream. And if, like me, you have a super fun mix of medical and relational trauma, you’re gonna have just an absolute blast while asleep.
I don’t dream in the surreal, whacky, weirdly-beautiful-upon-waking way. I have a lot of nightmares, and they’re really fucking horrible.
I’ve gotten really good at waking myself up, though. And in order to fall back asleep without being afraid, I’ve gotten really good at finding the bright side of nightmares.
The closest thing to “new” information we get from dreams, we get because we’re forced into experiencing something we’ve been running from without having an out. During and after the dream, we really feel the emotions that would come up were we to truly be there–in a scenario that we fear (or want) more than anything.
The interesting thing about being nightmare-prone is that I’ve faced my biggest fears like, a thousand times. I’ve felt afraid and alone and devastated and I’ve gotten through all of it–even in my dreams, big, painful emotions don’t kill me. If I’m to take anything from dreams, which I’m hard pressed to because fuck nightmares forever, it would be that I’m stronger than I give myself credit for.
I used to find that things that happened in my waking life were much less believable than being inside of a nightmare. Stupid as this seems, it makes sense to me looking back. If we are inundated with fear like I was–if we project ourselves into the future through anxiety or worry or fixation, like I did–we are playing out nightmares in our minds nearly constantly. We are experiencing our worst-case-scenarios as background noise while we attempt to live our lives.
Fucked up, right? It’s like the TV was on in the background of my mind, and all that played were my greatest fears on an unending loop. It was like the show Ridiculousness on MTV–it just never fucking stops, no matter how much you want it to. No matter how much you beg and plead. Rob Dyrdek remains.
The thoughts went something like this: My family loves me? Well that doesn’t make sense because I’ve told myself a thousand times that they hate me. I’m actually good at writing? Well that’s not true because the TV in the background of my mind is showing me that I’m a failure. It becomes hard to believe good things can happen to you when your brain is just nightmares–just Ridiculousness–on repeat.
What it took to change how I interacted with the waking-nightmare-voice was realizing that these good things are just as likely, and in fact, usually much more likely than the worst-case scenario. My biggest fear is just one possible outcome of a situation. There are a million more that hurt way less, or don’t hurt at all. I grew up with extreme anxiety, so realizing this was nothing short of a goddamn miracle.
It still doesn’t feel real all the time, and that’s okay. I know from experience I’m much stronger than I believe.
Last night, I read poetry (out loud) at a hardware store. I stood on a stage between the goat feed and the hammers, and read a poem I wrote about Amtrak. Then I read one about coordinates. Then I read one about my sister moving to New York. Then I sat down next to the cow feed and ate cold french fries while someone on stage played the accordian. This was real, waking life. THIS is the kind of surreal fucking shit dreams should be made up of. Not our trauma’s greatest hits hosted by Rob Fucking Dyrdek. It should be weirdo, talented strangers and a half empty ketchup bottle next to a chainsaw.
I’m trying to believe this is my reality, more than the nightmares, because it is. It really is.
I love you. Sleep well. x.
Girl Seeking Peanut Butter 