Moral Dreams

Just a funny portion of my dream from last night.....  I met a very good looking guy who was in town for a conference of some sort.  He asked me out.  Well, I knew he wasn't a member of the church, so I made him sign a form stating he knew what sort of things I would and would not do with him.  I wanted him to know up front what to expect from me and to commit to only that.  :)

You are not normal

I can't tell you how many times I have had people tell me I am not normal.  I find this rather amusing.  I was thinking about it today as I was driving home.  One thing not normal about me...... I have to consciously breathe.  I hold my breath all the time.  Not to the point where I'm gasping for air or anything.  I just hold it for a while, then breathe normally.  When I'm driving or reading, I will notice and force myself to breathe at a regular pace.  Strange!  I'm assuming it's a reaction to stress, though I don't feel extraordinarily stressed (thank goodness).  Just kind of a weird quirk of mine.

A Little More Information.......

I've had a few comments on my state of tiredness. Thank you for all your concern! For those who haven't been "in the loop". I have tried more sleeping pills than I can even count. They don't make me sleep any "better" than I already do. I still dream crazily and I feel like I have lived another life all night long. The other problem with sleeping pills is that they leave me feeling a little groggy in the morning. I'm already tired, I don't need to add grogginess! :)

So, a few years ago my doctor thought maybe the sleepiness could be a side effect of some other meds I was taking. He changed my meds. We tried 3 or 4 different meds over the course of many months, but there was no change. I have another doctor now who had me stop the meds altogether and still no change. I have had a night time sleep study (I'm not sure how a person is supposed to sleep with a million wires hanging from them). I've had a day time sleep study. I've had a few oximetry studies. Conclusion: no sleep apnea, no narcolepsy, no clue what it is! In fact, the sleep specialist I have gone to told me that I'm "not normal". I had to laugh at that. I didn't need to pay big bucks for her to tell me that! I'm smart enough to figure that out on my own....

My doctor had me try the CPAP machine (forced air for sleep apnea) to see if it might help. It drove me crazy! It took a while, but I was finally able to sleep with it for a while, but there never was any benefit. My sleep specialist wants me to try it again, but the thought of using it again fills me with such dread and I break down into tears. For those who know me, I don't cry -- at least not very often. The thought of the CPAP machine is so torcherous to me that I actually cried in the doctor's office. I told the doctor I would try it again, basically to please her. Due to some scheduling problems, it has never worked out for me to try it. I've even called the company to see when they might deliver it. It was ordered in May, but still no delivery (the middle of September). I called the doctor's office to ask about it. The doctor had told me that maybe if it worked this time that there is a mouth insert that could work. I asked if we could just try the mouth insert and I was told that it is only 50% effective. What?! What's the point of torchering me more than? She basically came out and told me that she didn't think it really would be helpful. So WHY are we trying it? Well, I decided to take the 5 months of not being able to straighten things out and get the CPAP machine to me as a sign that I didn't need to try it again. It didn't work the last time I tried it (1 year ago) and I don't know why I should think it would work now.

For now, I rely on stimulants during the day to keep me somewhat coherent. They work ok and I can make it through the day. I'm grateful for that. I'm kind of at a loss as to what to try next. I don't take the stimulants on the weekends to try to minimize my body developing a tolerance to them (my body is amazingly efficient at tolerating many drugs -- in fact, I can take some of the stimulants and still be asleep within the hour....). I don't want the stimulants to be the permanent solution, but they are all I have right now.

So, that is my sob story. I was reading back in my journal and realized this has been going on for well over 4 years. Thinking back, when I was living in Kaysville, I would have to stop on the way home from work (in Salt Lake) and take a nap in the parking lot of Smith's. That was a good 5 or 6 years ago. I guess I really can't pin point a start to my sleeping problems. All I know is they have gotten bad enough that I can no longer function. I'm far too grouchy with my poor students. I feel bad when I get cross with them, but if they would just stop whining! :)

Ok, so that is more of the story. I appreciate everyone's love and support! If you have further ideas, feel free to send them my way. I will continue to write down my more entertaining dreams. I might as well entertain all of you if I can!

It's sad when.....

Ok, so one of my students came up to me after class and asked me if I have a newborn at home. He said that I look as tired as his wife does and they have a newborn. I had to laugh. I told him no, but I wish I had a known reason for being so tired. I sleep at night (the night passes too quickly for me to actually be awake the whole time), but I always feel so tired in the morning. My dreams are so vivid. I dream all night long and I feel like I have lived whatever I was dreaming. I'm living a double life! How do I stop?!

Last Night's Dreams......

I spent most of the night trying to finish up some sort of project. I can’t quite pinpoint what it was, but it was very frustrating for me. It was like I was in charge and someone was supposed to be taking over for me on a certain date or at a certain time. I was holding out until that happened, but it never did. I was so frustrated because I had to keep working with no relief from anyone.

The part I really remember – I had gone to a conference of some sort. We had some free time and our hotel was right on the beach so I decided to go swimming for a while. There were all sorts of animals to see and swim with. I was so excited. There was something like a jelly fish (though it wasn’t a jelly fish). There were horses. I wanted to pet the horses so I got fairly close and in the process, one of them reared up in the water and came down on me. It definitely scared me so I decided I would stay away from them. On the ocean floor there were bones that we could see (I remember whale bones). I swam over to another part, but there were beetles all over and I didn’t like that so much. I was so happy swimming around and seeing everything. I decided to get out for a while and there was a pavilion that people could sit at and watch the animals. I sat in there for a while. Seals came out and sprayed us with water. Then there was a frog, which happened to be my boss (which was not weird at all in my dream), that came up and kept spraying water specifically on me. Another animal came out and “sneezed” all over us. It was pretty gross. I decided to go in and find the people that had come with me to this conference. My friend wasn’t in our room (I have no idea who this friend was). We had some other people that came with us that had an adjoining room. I didn’t like them very much and I realized they had been coming into our room. I wasn’t very happy about that. I went in search of my friend. I went to the restaurant where I had been eating with some other friends prior to swimming. They had ordered custard (I remember telling them to save me some since I love custard). When I got to the table, they hadn’t eaten hardly any of it because they didn’t like it. I was so excited because there was so much left over for me. It was so yummy. (By the time I got back to the restaurant, my friends were long gone and the custard dish was just sitting there on their table. I assumed it was there dish and started eating out of it. Strange!). I spent the rest of the evening looking for my friend that had come with me. I wanted her to go swimming with me and to see how cool all the animals were.

Here They Come Again

Ok, so I'm sitting here thinking "I really wish my friends would update their blogs!" and I look at my own and see the last time I posted was in the middle of July. That was last week, right?! Where has the time gone? Anyway, when I had my shoulder surgery, I stopped writing down my dreams (it was far too hard to try and type while my right hand was in a sling for 6 weeks). Well, I got out of the habit. The dreams didn't go away, but I forgot to write them down. Last night's dream was far too strange to not write down so hopefully I will get back into the swing of things. At least I can entertain some of you (you can be grateful you're not me!).

Last night’s dream was interesting. I dreamt I had gone to a ward activity of some kind (Enrichment night or something like that). I had asked a friend of mine (Liz Schultz) to help me get to my visiting teaching appointment. I had my own “transportation”, but for some reason I needed her help. Or maybe I just wanted her to follow me and make sure I got there ok. My “transportation” was a small chest of drawers, something like a night stand. I had a lamp on top and some papers. Anyway, I sat on top of this chest and pushed off to get myself going. In the parking lot, I was moving fine, but once I got to the street, I just couldn’t get my “transportation” to work for me. The lamp was falling over and I was dropping papers everywhere and I just couldn’t get the thing to go! Liz and I talked for a little while and decided it really would be easier if we had a rope that we could tie around my “transportation” and pull me to where I needed to me. Alas, we did not have a rope and so that was not a viable solution. At that point we gave up and I told her I would figure out how to get to where I needed to be.

Well, I ended up at a house where I some of my nephews were (Nate and his brothers). I went to hang out in the backyard with my dog, Bullwinkle. My nephews were laughing and joking and asked me if I wanted to see something funny. Sure! They got together a bunch of crushed up fruit loops and started screeching really high and then they ran inside. This made me a little nervous since I was still sitting outside. A few seconds later hundreds of chipmunks came running to the fruit loops to eat them. I was swarmed. I decided to let Bullwinkle go to see what he would do. He ran towards the big group of chipmunks and then stopped, cocked his head to the side, and just sniffed them. I was really worried about them attacking Bullwinkle and giving him some sort of disease. I started to hustle to get the dogs in the house so I would have to worry about them. I got Bullwinkle in ok and then I was looking for Rocky. In the process of looking I noticed one of the chipmunks (a very large one) happened to have on a collar and a leash. Weird! This must be someone’s pet chipmunk! It seemed kind of worried as well. It was so kind though and helped me herd Rocky into the house. The problem was trying to keep all the chipmunks outside. We got Rocky in and this “pet” chipmunk tried to come in as well. As we hurried and slammed the door, it turns out I got the “pet” chipmunk caught so he was half in the house and half out – underneath the door. Yes, he was squished. Luckily in my dream he was very “flexible” and this didn’t kill him. I opened the door and he was fine. We pushed him back outside. I felt kind of bad because he had helped get Rocky inside, but I didn’t know anything else about this “pet” chipmunk and didn’t want to risk having him in the house. Talking to my nephews, it was actually a ferret that belonged to their neighbor.

And that’s all I remember………