The (Not So) Great Awakening and Epic Nightmare
OMFG. Here’s how the epic nightmare took hold. I was very rudely awakened by a cat under my bed this morning. He was on his back, scooting around under the mattress while sinking his claws into the new adjustable, cloth-covered bed platform.
It might be funny behavior worthy of a giggle at 3 pm, but at 3 am it’s obnoxious and liable to wake up a woman already exhausted by the physical manifestations of her anxiety, leaving her agitated.
Ask me how I know.
When I don’t sleep, my inner grump thinks she’s at a rave, and someone has swiped her glow stick and called her the thief.
So I turned on my sleep podcast, shoved a pillow between my knees to prevent back spasms, and rolled onto my right side to try and play a game of pick up slumber. I did fall back to sleep, but it was lousy, unrestful, and entirely Oliver’s fault.
He’s adorable, but not before dawn.
I was curled into a fetal position. Something that’s sure to start any day off with aches. I had the added fortune of bad-dreaming my way through that sleep too. It wasn’t a nightmare in the colloquial sense, but it was most definitely an epic nightmare.
I won’t bore you with every detail, promise. Just the relevant parts so you understand my mental state this morning.
When I went back to sleep, my legs curled with my muscles firing like I was riding a bicycle—apparently causing my subconscious brain to dream I was riding a bike through an inaccessible sorority house that I couldn’t escape. With every ridiculous lap I was forced to make while trying desperately to leave, I got grumpier.
When someone’s frat boyfriend called me a little girl, I snapped. “I’m forty-fucking-four you fucking asshat.”
I woke up in a baaaaad mood. It was 7:13 am, and my legs were still curled up. I was still lying on my side, clutching the pillow with my knees. I hadn’t moved for four hours. I was tired and extremely sore.
When I told Dan why my legs were broke and I needed help putting my pants on he said, “Jesus, Swiss. Pretty sure that dream’s a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey.”
I started assessing the characters and the absurdity of obstacles on my allegorical path. “Holy shit.” I could feel my eyes widen some.
My brain had spent the last four hours dreaming up an allegory for my disability that included my trying to escape a cluttered old house with stairs AND A BIKE while my dog was trapped in a pickup truck.
There were subplots and side quests galore. So many I couldn’t write them all here if I wanted to. If I wasn’t in REM sleep the whole 4 hours, it sure felt like I was in REM sleep the whole time.
For perspective: I don’t even watch new 90-minute movies these days because they require an outsized amount of concentration relative to the endurance required to focus on anything during a bout of anxious brain fog.
There’s no rest for the disabled. Here I am trying to extend my legs and opposing muscle groups are stuck in a jerky opposition loop that makes me so wobbly I can’t stand up straight.