Memoirs of a bad sleeper…..

I’ve always been a bad sleeper.  Nightmares, and screaming in my sleep, and sleep walking, and tossing and turning, and insomnia, etc.  It breaks my heart because I LOOOOOOVE to sleep, and there’s nothing more frustrating than to wake up exhausted after a horrible night of tossing and turning and nightmares.

My brains is really vicious when it comes to nightmares.  One of it’s favorite tricks to play is to have my nightmare start in the exact same setting as how I went to sleep.  I’ll get in bed and close my eyes to go to sleep, then open them again and be dreaming- but in my dream, everything is exactly how it was when I fell asleep so I don’t know I’m dreaming.  I used to have nightmares all the time that started out like this, but in the dream I’m paralyzed and unable to make any noise (only able to stare straight ahead)- but I can hear someone breaking into the house or killing Sully in another room (horrifying, I know).  I sometimes sleep with my eyes open (or so I’ve been told), so I think that’s where these dreams come from.  I hate these nightmares more than anything on the planet, and I will try to stay awake for days after having one because I’m so afraid of them.

My most common re-occurring nightmare is that my teeth have fallen out.  All the symbolism and dream analysis books I have say that teeth are a sign of power (which is why warriors in tribes make jewelry out of the teeth of their kills or the animals they’ve hunted).  I don’t know if that really ties into these nightmares or how much stock I put into dream analysis- but it seems to fit.  I feel like I’ve lost control or power over my current life situation- so out go the teeth.  I’ve always compulsively clenched my jaws and grind my teeth (sometimes so much that I give myself horrible headaches), so I’m sure I’m somewhat aware of this while I’m sleeping and this adds to the nightmares.  (Yeah… I’m a little tightly wound… I’m working on that.)

I had one of my teeth dreams last night.  But this time it was accompanied by some of my legendary sleepwalking.  In my dream, I got out of bed and could feel something weird in my mouth… like gravel and dust.  So I went into our bathroom, and all my bottom teeth were crumbling to pieces.  I knew I had to get to work in the morning, and that I didn’t have time to go to the dentist, so I started to panic about how I was going to keep my teeth intact throughout the upcoming day.  All the while, they’re falling apart like sand castles, leaving black bloody gaping holes in my gums.  Then, the muscles in my bottom lip went dead, and it would do nothing but lifelessly hang there exposing my rotting mouth.  If I tried to speak, it was nothing but a string of garbled nonsense followed by waterfalls of blood and drool.  I began pacing around the house trying to find something to hold my bottom lip in place so I could get to work in the morning.

And this is where the sleepwalking comes in.

Brad will usually wake up in the middle of the night and hang out in the kitchen until he can get sleepy enough to fall back asleep (he’s not a great sleeper either.. . but he’s just restless- not plagued with the bullshit that I go through).  He informed me this morning that I joined him in the kitchen last night.  He said that I wandered into the dining room (scaring the shit out of him) with my hands in my mouth, looking distraught.  He asked me what I was doing, and I started mumbling over and over (hands still in mouth) that I was looking for my teeth.  He said he didn’t realize what was going on until he looked at my eyes, and he said they were the eyes of a dead person.  Totally vacant.  After being thoroughly freaked out, he put me back to bed… though he said I laid there with my dead eyes open for a really long time, mumbling and playing with my teeth, giving him the creepin’ willies.

I’d really like for this to stop.  I’ve tried drinking “sleepy” teas and eating full meals before bed; drinking booze and taking pills; meditating and yoga; limiting the hours I sleep to just a few a night so that I’m frighteningly exhausted by the time I hit the sack; soothing music; etc.  You name it… I’ve tried it.  But my stupid fucking brain is dead set on playing mean games all night.  It’s really starting to piss me off… not to mention that I’m so damn tired when I wake up from my nocturnal adventures that I can’t think clearly enough to get through my days.

I’ve been asked over and over where I come up with the images for my paintings… my dead-eyed sleepwalking nightmares are where they start.  And I’d like for them to give me a little bit of a break.

Any suggestions?  Anyone?

Are traumatic sleep patterns hereditary?

I’ve had bad nightmares ever since I was a little kid. Not just “boogey-men in the closet” or “being lost in the mall” nightmares… but nightmares of disemboweled of loved ones, and of projectile vomiting tar and blood on people that makes their flesh melt off… and my teeth rotting. Every week in some dream, my teeth rot out of my head. Bad, icky nightmares that make me want to take my brain out of my head and scrub it down with clorox. Ever since I was tiny. I don’t remember a time where I didn’t have them at least 3 or 4 nights a week. I think it’s how I deal with stress. I’m used to them, and they don’t bother me as much as they used to… and they don’t look like they’re ever going away- so whatever. And then there’s the sleepwalking thing that I’ve mentioned in earlier postings…. I’m just not a good sleeper.

But now my poor little fella has been harshly thrust into the world of “bad sleep”. He’s always had problems with nightmares…. but starting a couple weeks ago, it turned into something very different. I’ll hear him moaning and shouting in his room, so I’ll go in there to wake him up. And he’ll sit up, eyes open, appearing to be awake- but lashing out and babbling incoherently. I’ll coax him into getting up and walking around (because I know he’s still in a dream state) and try to get him to snap out of it… but the whole time he’ll be cowering and shaking, totally disoriented. The last time it happened it took me about 10 minutes to pull him out of it, and I was able to do this by having him run his hands under cold water and wiping his face down with a cold washcloth. It’s totally heartbreaking to witness. And I know that he’s not getting a good night’s rest because of this, and the last thing he needs is something else to add to his already tumultuous school days.

So I’m making an appointment with a kiddo-shrink to see if he’s got some things he needs to work out, as well as with his regular doctor to see what he has to say.

Is this kind of stuff hereditary? I never really know. I was adopted, so I don’t know what my biological parents’ sleep patterns are, or how their bodies cope with stress. Along with inheriting my love for drawing, did he also get my hauntings as well? By “hauntings”, I don’t mean it to come off as some “Bright Eyes” Elliot Smith “oh-I’m-soooooo-troubled” bullshit whiny way…. but in that “life annoys the fuck out of me and I don’t know how to express it” kind of way. Can lack of emotional functioning be handed down from generation to generation… even if I’ve made great efforts to try to teach him to talk out his problems and emotions in a healthy way instead of bottling it up? I’m sorry, little Sully, for getting the bad parts of my brain. At least he got my ears.

And an update…. Brad has gotten off his German Industrial music kick, but has now embraced ZZ Top and has taken to standing as close as he can to me with his guitar and playing this vile music while I’m trying to work. He thinks this is so much funner than playing the ’80′s German Industrial music nonstop… but it isn’t. And he thinks it’s funnier because the more pissed I get about something- the better he thinks it is. This is my marriage. Someone needs to come and put me out of my misery.

But I kicked the shit out of him in Scrabble tonight… so I got a little vindication (and I didn’t even have to cheat).