Clannad banishes demons - who knew?

Last night I had one of many recent nightmares that involves me fighting off ghosts/demons. The dreams take place in a house - sometimes one I lived in, sometimes one I've made up in my head - and my Mom is always there. She is alive but weak. Sometimes there are other people around, sometimes not. But it is always up to me to fight the demons. I pray to Green Tara, I drag out rosaries and crucifixes in the dream, but nothing seems to work. The demons never hurt us, they're just wicked creepy. And the dream always results in me waking in the middle of the night covered in sweat.

This morning Bizarro helped me to decode these dreams, and then I was able to do something I haven't been able to since Mom died. I played one of her CDs that have been sitting on my shelf since January. I actually gave her many of these CDs, and we'd listen to them when I would come over on Sunday to have dinner and play Scrabble. I tried listening to one of them back in February or thereabouts, and I couldn't do it. It was too much.

I feel like I'm working through the next layer of grief. About a month ago I was feeling very bad - sad all the time, not wanting to see anyone. Depressed, actually. The beginning of the school year has helped me regain some personal focus, but these issues are still there, and they've been coming out in the form of these dreams. I am hoping now that I've decoded them, played a Clannad CD that was my Mom's, and gone to the cemetery (last weekend, for the first time since the burial), I will sleep better at night.

Settling In

Feeling a little more at ease this morning. I am really looking forward to teaching my class and getting back into a real schedule. Got up at a respectable hour this morning on the way to a busy day that will include but is not limited to: finalizing a syllabus and a couple lesson plans for the week, working on my Live Adventure character (live action role playing game I do once a year), and doing some form of exercise, depending on what today's weather offers. Also grocery shopping and a review of our household budget with Bizarro. (It's tough to have a solid budget when my income tends to change every few months.)

It's a quiet morning; I'm feeling fairly peaceful at the moment. Remembering a dream I had last night in which I was at some kind of special training in a huge mansion-like house, but I can't remember what the training was for. Anyway, the person running the program was a crazy bitch, and I soon found myself on her bad side, along with one of the other students who tried to get me in trouble and generally make my life miserable. Finally I just said screw it, got up, started packing my bags. Suddenly the student who had it out for me started being nice and helped me pack, even a bit sad that I was going. It was weird. I am weird.

Time to make the coffee.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Over the last few weeks, I have had a recurring motif in my dreams. Get ready for this; it's hilarious and probably the most Bizarr-o thing I've had to offer in awhile:

I keep dreaming that the toilet is backed up and I am plunging like mad to keep it from overflowing. This happens in different settings, sometimes with Bizarro around, sometimes not.




The truth is that our toilet does actually need more plunging than the average toilet. It probably needs a good roto-rooting, or at least some dump of noxious chemicals to clear out the pipes. It's not like we're throwing anything down there that shouldn't be!

I know, this is a weird topic and I agree that it is even weirder that I'm dreaming about it on a semi-regular basis. Clearly my mind has taken the icon of the plugged toilet to represent something else in my life. For those of you amateur psychoanalysts, go to town and let me know what you think.

I have my own idea: I am always feeling overwhelmed by so much stuff (crap?) that it will overflow and make a mess unless I plunge (read: control) and I am the only one to do it.

That said, I now need to return to my huge pile of grading which is about to get bigger when they hand in second drafts today. Hmmm, I wonder what those dreams could possibly be about?

Asleep at the Wheel

I caught my eyelids drooping a few times on the ride home today. What a shitty day at work - and I was exhausted to begin with. Haven't had a good night's sleep in about a week and it's starting to take its toll. Every night I have intensely hyper-vivid dreams, often anxiety dreams, and every morning at 5:00 I wake up like clockwork. Then I have to try to go back to sleep, which ain't always easy with the freight train running through my bedroom (that would be Bizarro's snoring), so I come out to the futon in the LR for a couple hours before I have to get up.

I need me one of these to get to work and get home faster:



www.paleo-future.blogspot.com

T-Minus 5 days and counting

It's Thursday morning; I'm feeling pretty set for leaving on Monday. I have been working my way down an immense list of things to do, and now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Today I gotta clean the bathroom and vacuum, and of course study Korean. And I have a 1:00 meeting with the producer of the Global Nomads video, which is just for me to show her how to use Quicktime.

The Global Nomads video is on hold until after I get started on Post for Korea Dreambus! but I want to make sure she can look at all the footage we've shot so far so she can work on an EDL (Edit Decision List). So it's not really on hold - just my part is.

This morning I woke up from one of these recurring dreams that have been plaguing me lately. The dream context is always different, but I always have this little creature/baby/animal that lives in my pocket, and the creature can't breathe in my pocket. I check on it and try to revive it, but eventually it dies. The one I had this morning was a little different because the little creature called my name out to remind me that it was in the pocket, and explained to me that it couldn't breathe. Then something else happened, and there was a guy who threatened to take away all my animals unless I left the area immediately (it was like some sort of park or public space). I went into panic mode, gathering up all the animals I could find, and told Bizarro to do the same and meet me at the car. Suddenly I remembered the little one in my pocket, but when I took it out, it was too late. Weirdly, because it is a dream, the little creature didn't look like a fuzzy little animal any more. It looked like one of my tubes of Burt's Bees Lip Balm.

I know it sounds hilarious, but I woke up in tears. These dreams have been coming at least once a week, and I'm sure they have everything to do with my feelings of responsibility concerning my mom's health and life. They may also represent a part of myself that I'm stuffing in a pocket and not giving air to. Yesterday my counselor and I discussed the feelings of "anticipatory grief" (the psychological term, apparently) that I have been pushing away. The very notion of my mom not being here fills me with dread and loss and grief, so I've been trying not to have those feelings. My counselor said I should allow them to come out, when I am in an appropriate place and time to do so.

Damn, that's a lot of heavy shitt, isn't it? Despite the dreams, I am doing well. Getting more and more jazzed for Korea every day.