My friend Jen Boissonneault wrote a blog post about dreams,
which in turn inspired another friend, Natalie Kenney, to blog about dreams,
and I thought this would be a good time to jump on the dreamwagon. My dreaming
is a little different than most because I have Narcolepsy.
 |
| Jen and Natalie. I was probably napping somewhere. |
Not the
"I'm-just-tired-all-the-time-so-I'll-claim-an-illness" kind, but the
real thing. Although I'm sure I've had it for decades, I was officially
diagnosed about ten years ago, and my life definitely changed. I've tried all of the medicine on the market,
but found the side effects were more than I could handle, so I adjusted my
lifestyle. I sleep four times a day, for a few hours at a time. It's currently
3am, and yes, I am writing this post. I now schedule every part of my day and
if my schedule is interrupted, it can be very distressing.
I experience
cataplexy almost daily, so I have learned to control my emotions. I love to
laugh, but I make sure when I do, I am sitting down, or at least holding on to
something. Otherwise, I may fall down. Sleep paralysis I experience quite
frequently, and although I should be use to it, it is still frightening every
time.
So what does all of that have to do with writing and dreams?
I'm getting there. First a nap...
While many people have difficulty falling asleep and then
typically take an hour or more to reach the first phase of REM sleep, I don't.
My non-REM periods, the 'brain resting phase' of sleep, are very brief. Typically, I'm asleep in less
than five minutes of my head hitting the pillow; my husband claims it's more
like less than a minute. But although it may appear that I'm sleeping at first,
I'm really not. I go through periods of hypnagogic hallucinations, which many
artists, like Beethoven and Salvador Dali, said aided their creativity. Some,
maybe, but most are frightening. They seem more real than reality, if you can
imagine something like that. And it is the one time during my sleep period that
I don't realize I am actually asleep. I once called 911 during this period and
told the operator there was someone in my house and my husband had been shot. I
could smell the gunpowder. Yeah, explain that one to the cops at 2am.
Then, finally, I get to the good stuff. The REM sleep, the
dream state. This is the best part, not only because I dream lucidly every
time, but because I can control my actions in my dreams. There's a fancy
medical term for that, too, but basically, if I'm having a nightmare, I just
change it. I turn monsters in to puppies, or I fly away. I like to jump off
buildings and mountains and then catch myself just before I hit ground. Call it
my dream hobby. I guess this is my sleep reward for making it through the
hallucinations without going crazy.
Then I wake up, almost directly from REM, and can go right
back to whatever I was doing before my nap. And, yes, I do this at least four
times a day.
So, of course I have the cataplexy to deal with, and my
brain will eventually burn out from lack of rest, if I don't die of a heart
attack during a horrifying hallucination first, but there are benefits, as a writer.
My creativity meter is always on high. I've found myself
'creating' a scene in a dream, watching it, changing it, smelling it, feeling
it, and then waking up to write it. The middle of the night is my most
productive time, because the house is quiet, I've just had a two hour bout of
inspiration, and can sit down and write non- stop for hours.
Then it starts all over again.
Please check out Jen Boissoneault's blog post about dreams facts and Natalie Kenney's blog post about her own dreams as inspiration for writing.Then feel free to jump on the dream wagon with us this week!
