Mood: Melancholy

[6/12/22]

Mostly awful dreams of what I want most at the moment slipping through my fingers. In the worst ways. I can't say explicitly what without feeling or sounding stupid. One of the reasons I began the medication I'm on now is because one of the side effects was not vivid dreams. Oh well. Some times there are nice moments. Almost serene, where I'm a kid again in the back of a fast moving car going through the desert, some nameless region of Nevada or Arizona or New Mexico. I love all the nothingness of those long stretches of land. All the sage brush and the dirt and the abandonded barns, and the large swathes of land fenced by barbed wire containing horses and cows, some standing, some sitting in the shade of a rare tree. The heat of the desert barely reaching me in my cool, air conditioned car. I slip away into nothingness and I blend in with the vast unchanging landscape.

[3/4/22]

One of the reasons I stopped seeing my therapist actually had to do with dreams. I experience the must surreal, vivid, terrifying dreams on my medication. They caused me an incredible amount of anxiety because I would view them as the stress I was dealing with in my life seeping into my dreams, which is something I really hate. I hate dreaming of teeth falling out, of my mother hating me, being a failure, being loveless. I couldn't make heads or tales of them with my therapist, and much less now. But I just felt as if I should've gotten help. I mean not real definitive answers, but something, anything to understand. Finally I felt as if I was making no headway anywhere, either with my dreams or in my life. I decided to stop paying so much for something I thought wasn't doing much for me, but now I think I made a mistake. I don't know. I need someone to talk to, but at the same time I felt like I was running in circles, trying to find answers where there were none.

[2/28/22]

Lately all I've been dreaming, are things I've dreamt before. I don't put much stock in dreams, other than the fact they usually come to represent what I fear most, or what's hurting me. The dreams are always the same. I'm walking from school to my mom's car, and I can't find her. I search for hours until dark, until finally there's nothing else to do, so I just sit on the curb for the rest of the night.

Another common one is I'm trying to save my childhood dog, Charlie from certain death. I do every possible thing I can, but nothing helps. He always ends up dying. The origin of this one is obvious. My unresolved feelings over his sudden death. But it hurts even more to relive in a dream, where you're feeling all that anxiety and anger and despair again in real time. And sometimes it has me waking up thinking he's still here. I feel the need to say "he wasn't just a dog" even though I don't need to. But he was my only friend for ten years.

I've also been experiencing more sleep paralysis than before. I say before like that means anything. I guess by "before" I mean, when I was at home. They're always the same too. I don't wake up fully awake, I wake up feeling so tired I can't even move. I think to myself, "I'll move my arm" but it doesn't happen. I'm not aware of the paralysis. I don't see anything during these episodes but I do hear voices. Hushed voices just outside my door, and I hear my name being spoken over and over again. Sometimes I don't hear or see anything at all, but I feel like something is near. Like something is right behind me. I feel the bed dip by my feet as if someone has sat down to talk to me.