I don’t have nightmares. I mean, ok, I’ve occasionally been harassed by some illogical horror summoned from my subconscious. I’ll fall off a cliff, realize I’m naked in public -- you know, the simple, silly stuff that every dreamer endures from time to time.
Last night, though, I had NIGHTMARES; not a single, troubling manifestation, but a broad spectrum. I slept three hours at most, but that was all the time my brain needed. Even thinking back on my dreams now, I feel sick to my stomach. This isn’t “too many fair rides” sick; this is something else, something worse.
The little sleep I got was hard-earned, but every minute of it was another opportunity for my spiteful subconscious to fine-tune its savagery.
Maybe it was the almonds. Isn’t too much sugar before bed supposed to cause nightmares? Maybe? But that doesn’t even fit. The previous night I had half a tanker of glucose still circulating in my body when I zonked out and that didn’t effect me. Half a gallon of whipped cream, totally fine. A handful of sugared almonds? Send in the executioner.
I don’t know. Maybe the few hours of reprieve between my fair feast and actual sleep was enough. Perhaps nightmares are left behind by sleep gremlins. They harvest freshly-ingested sugar from our veins, reimbursing us with bad dreams. “Two hours old? Too stale, too stale!”
Yeah. I’m blaming the almonds.
Another day, another brutal lesson learned. I will NOT be making that mistake again.
It offers a bit of perspective, though. Everything that was bothering me yesterday concerning Brooke is pretty damn silly next to this. I’d relive it all again to get the memories of these damn nightmares out of my head.
~~~
It’s going to be a tough one. Only a mile and a half and I’m taking a break. This is one of those low mileage days I tried to bake into my planning. I feel a little better, though. As time passes, the nightmares’ residue fades. They’re no less horrifying, but feel a little less real.
I’ve been thinking about it and maybe part of what brought on the nightmares is loneliness. For weeks ahead of this hike, I was preparing myself to be alone in the woods. Sure, I expected to bump into other people here and there, fellow hikers or clerks when I was on supply runs. A few brief conversations, maybe a laugh or two, and then back to the solitude of nature. Peace, quiet, hiking.
Instead, I spent two wild nights back in society, surrounded by new friends, with more excitement than I’ve had in a long time. That’s about as far from trail tranquility as I could have gotten.
I think that broke me. At least, it broke the shell I built. I’m a very social person most of the time, so it took a dedicated effort to prepare myself for trail life. Yet in the span of a few days, I’ve flipped back and forth between tranquility and excitement so many times I’ve nearly broken the switch.
It shouldn’t surprise me that my body can’t keep up. I was (and still am) experiencing withdrawal. There’s a pulsing expectation now, “Hey, where are we going tonight? Who are we going to see? Where’s the PARTY?” that I’ll probably be stuck with for a while. Hell, I even cheated and went off-trail today when I couldn’t take it any more. I thought there might be SOMETHING to give me a mild fix. A restaurant, a gas station. Nope, just fields and their annoyed bovine tenants. I doubled-back to my trail in shame.
I need to readjust. That’s the whole truth of it; it’s what’s really bothering me. Yesterday’s soppy obsession just compounded the underlying issue. There was even an element of loneliness in some of my nightmares, so I’m sure that’s what’ s going on.
The almonds aren’t entirely off the hook, though. They may not have committed the crime, but I’m pretty sure they were willing accomplices.
I’m starting from scratch again, but I think a few days of cold turkey isolation will settle me down. I just need time.
It’s back to me and the trail again, just like it’s supposed to be.
~~~
I keep seeing notifications on my phone. I ended up exchanging numbers with most of the gang after the fair, but didn’t mention my “emergencies only” clause. Why bother? Trying to re-enforce that dictum feels silly now.
Most of the texts I’ve received today have been from Brase. I have no idea why, but he keeps sending me cat memes. The last one made me actually laugh out loud. It had a grumpy Russian Blue in judge’s attire, even the white, powdered wig. I’m a cat now, I suppose. That’s fine by me; there are certainly worse spirit animals. I’m not going to stand here and tell you I’d NEVER drink milk from a saucer.
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Interspersed with Brase’s memes are messages from Cal – ALSO pictures of animals. He sends indulgent wild life; I mean, these animals are FAT. And to each one he’s added a caption like, “Us after our 24 hour cream cheese bender. (Long story, but isn’t it amazing that cream cheese is good with almost anything? Why is cheese allowed to be such a delicious dessert additive?)” All these rotund critters sent from the guy with the negative body fat percentage.
Plus, he keeps sending the same blackboard meme. Each time a new equation is chalked onto it of absurd food combinations we need to try. All morbidly unhealthy, of course; some of it arguably inedible as well. If it’s even possible to deep fry cotton candy, I have a feeling the results would not be pleasant.
It’s been helping a lot. I’m breaking my own text message protocol and making myself a hypocrite (“I need to readjust to being on the trail alone!”), but it’s taking my mind off the nightmares. That’s worth skirting the rules a bit, without question.
I respond to each of Cal’s texts with an affirmation. “Yes.” “Of course.” “We’ll need two!” Brase gets a row of starry-eyed hearts. We’re developing a very strange relationship, he and I.
Brase is such a sweetheart, though. I’m lucky he wasn’t off spelunking in the Grand Canyon or something the day I swept into town. Can’t miss the opportunity to meet a guy like that. Some people are unique; Brase is once-in-a-lifetime.
No messages from anyone else yet. Want to really set my mind at ease? Some kind of update or explanation from Brooke would do the trick better than a thousand cat or food memes. Sorry, guys.
Now that I think about it, though, one of the nightmares was about her. Huh. I’d forgotten about that. Actually several members of the group made appearances in different dreams, but that nightmare, she got it all to herself. It was a bad one, too; really, really bad.
I’m going to focus on hiking now.
~~~
I made the mistake of telling Brent about my nightmares. I don’t know why I said anything, but now he’s made me promise to text him every few hours and let him know how I’m doing. My lapse in judgment wasn’t overly specific. I didn’t mention WHO the dreams involved, at least.
I tried to convince him that I’m fine. It was just a nightmare, some obnoxious evolutionary adaption to stress that has long outstayed its welcome. That wasn’t good enough for him, though.
Brent has this way of swinging you to his side of an argument without you realizing he’s doing it. You might begin on opposite sides, but after a minute or two of subtle manipulation, you’re repeating his initial argument right back at him. “No, it’s definitely duck season,” as if that had been your position the whole time.
Too late, you realize what’s happened and just stare back at him, confounded. He’s smirking, of course, because he knows what he’s done. Another victim; another argument won.
Consequently, I’ve agreed to keep him updated. I find myself suddenly confident that it’s just the right thing to do. Foul witch.
It’s amazing what one bad night of sleep can do to you physically. It feels like there’s ANOTHER me on my back, weighing me down. Hes got his arms around my throat, screeching in my ear, “Faster, faster!” A bloated albatross who loves piggy-back rides and has a heck of a grip, demanding I increase my pace, yet, by his very presence, ensures I can’t keep up my current speed. There’s an apt metaphor for my life.
~~~
Momentum is the name of the game, folks. Getting started took a Herculean effort, but now that I’m moving, I just put my head down and keep going. A boulder rolling down a hill and all that – actually, let’s maybe stay away from that particular analogy given my current environment.
But I feel good. I’ve only stopped for quick snacks and bathroom breaks. I have another five or six miles in me, no problem.
Every cat text is a little shot of adrenaline. I mean, who doesn’t find kitten and puppy memes adorable? Even people who don’t generally like animals must be swayed by their cuteness. If a picture of a kitten trying to lick a tiny snowflake off her nose repels you, that Grinch heart behind your ribs needs resuscitated.
CLEAR!
~~~
I’ve been thinking about why nightmares upset us so much. Yes, they feel real as they’re happening and we get scared when scary things happen to us, but it’s more than that.
I think we are accustomed to our dreams behaving in familiar ways. Regardless of the subject matter, there is consistency to the way they flow, the way they’re shaped. It’s like a signature. Your favorite artist might paint a new portrait, but you can still identify the creator because you recognize their style. It’s the same with our dreams.
Nightmares don’t follow the rules, though; they don’t care about familiarity or tradition. That’s unsettling on its own. Like getting into your car to leave for work and realizing the steering wheel is upside down. Sure, you can still operate the vehicle, and it isn’t THAT fundamentally different, but something is off and you can’t overlook it.
Most troubling is a simple but troubling truth. YOU’RE creating the nightmare. No matter what is causing you anguish, whether you’re being chased by a monster or buried alive, your own mind is forcing you to experience it.
Anything horrible in the world, anything that scares us or wants to hurt us, we can theoretically get away from. We can run, we can pull the covers over our heads and close our eyes. We can always do SOMETHING to protect ourselves.
But you can’t escape your own mind.
When IT’S trying to hurt you, to do you harm, where do you go? You can’t run away from a nightmare, you can’t escape. I think that that helplessness, that inability to interpose SOME barrier between ourselves and the often sadistic depths of our subconscious, is what makes nightmares truly frightening. The manifestation, itself, be it monsters or murderers, is bad, yeah. But knowing that you’re stuck there, inside the prison cell of your dreaming mind, defenseless and exposed, with no way to escape, is far, far more terrifying.
~~~
This’ll be my last entry for the day. I’m going to put in another mile or two which should get me up to 12. I’m closing in on Punx and still have some fuel in the tank.
It was a rough morning, no doubt, but I’m feeling better now, stronger. I just needed some distance, physically and mentally. The few times in my life that I’ve had significant nightmares, it’s always just a question of time. As the hours and days go by, those big scary dreams fade further and further into irrelevance. I am definitely looking forward to--
Oops, sorry. Getting a phone call. That’s weird. See ya!