mousme | I could live without this... (Reply)

Yeah. Anxiety/panic attacks are just great waking-up mechanisms. I don't understand how I can have a panic attack while I'm asleep, godammit! My alarm clock didn't go off this morning again. I think my cats have knocked it off my nighttable once too often. *sigh*

I was having a weird dream. Several weird dreams. Then again, my dreams are always weird.

I remember only a few snippets:

1- I was given a hamster, and was thrilled because I hadn't hamster in a long time. I love hamsters. So I ran to put him in the old cage I had. To my horror, I saw that I already had a hamster in the cage, one that I had somehow forgotten I had, and I hadn't changed the cage or fed or watered it in months, maybe years. It was still alive, but its fur was matted and it lay there with its eyes half-closed and breathed with difficulty. I couldn't believe it was still alive. I put the new hamster in the cage and took out the old one, and I took it over to a table where I tried to rehydrate it with an eyedropper. It sucked greedily at the water, but as it drank it began to shrink, as though it were kind of regressing (not like Alice in Wonderland, but as though it was going back in time). Finally it was so small it was just a speck and it disappeared, and I was guilt-ridden because I wanted to keep taking care of it and making up for my neglect. But it was gone.

2- The daughter of some friends of my family was telling me all about how she was applying for a Rhodes scholarship, and she wanted my advice since I'd already gone through the process. I was jealous, but I was also really apprehensive for her because I knew how hard it was, and I gave her advice (like playing up the fact that she does figure skating —which she actually does in real life) but tried to get her to apply for other scholarships too.

I think that last bit was part of the reason I started to panic. That was just about the worst time of my life: I remember, after I had gone through several rounds of interviews/what have you (I made it pretty far, but not far enough obviously), and I finally got the notice that I had been refused, that I cried for hours. I wasn't upset that I hadn't got the scholarship: I was so relieved that I wouldn't have to go that I cried. I was so stressed out and unhappy that I didn't even want to think about it anymore.

3- I remember vaguely being in a fair ground with lots of trees and picnic tables and very green grass. I think that was a good part of the dream sequence. I don't quite remember what happened there. I wish I did. I'm having a lot of trouble recalling my dreams once I'm awake these days. I miss being able to recall them: sometimes they're really nice.

I want to have that dream where I was swimming in a turquoise ocean again. I didn't have to breathe or anything, even though I was underwater, and I never got tired either. I want to go back there...

Angel_Youth