The Chaos of Current Dreams

My sleep has been absolute garbage for a while now. Previously, there's been a pattern of going to bed at a relatively normal hour (for me) around 10 or 11 and then waking up around 4 or 5 to get an early start on the day the way I tend to do.

Recently, however, I'll fall asleep and then be awakened an hour or two later, shaken awake out of some chaotic fever dream, most of which I've forgotten, but this week's have been vivid and memorable for some unknown reason.

A single moment in one found me in the middle of an important test, one that I'd studied for, but for which I found myself woefully unprepared. I could feel the immensity of my anxiety even in the dream state.

Another moment found me outside on a tarmac, watching this behemoth of a machine composed of rusting metal; copper, steel, brass. All kinds stitched together with what seemed like bad soldering and frayed shoelaces. It was a monstrosity of machine parts, many of which looked like the nose of airplanes all stacked on top of each other haphazardly. A father controlled the monstrosity from a cockpit near the ground, well below the majority of the metal. His family sat, smiling up into the sky, beside him. Soon, the sound of metal tearing apart and crumbling beneath itself. There were unknown people around me; we watched on in terror as the metal fell, the monstrosity dissembled and crushed the family beneath its weight.

I remember the feeling of running across the tarmac, the hot wind of the machine on fire getting hotter and hotter as we approached. I remember hearing the screams of the children, but not those of the adults, coming from inside the crumpled metal. I remember those of us on the tarmac trying unsuccessfully to remove large sections of the monstrosity up and off the family. All we could do was stand back and watch as more metal fell from above and onto the makeshift cockpit as fires broke out around the structure. Soon, even the screams of the children went silent and we knew that was it.

Anyway, I've been sleeping like shit. I don't imagine that's unusual for a lot of people right now. I have no doubt a great deal of it is emanating from global events, which have now become more local events.

I have always been good about keeping my wits about me, even when things have gotten about as crazy as they could possibly be. It's an outward calm, a demeanor, that some find settling. Hell, my boss even put me on an account recently BECAUSE of the fact that I'm cool under fire and that I bring a certain level of brevity and laughter to situations that could use it to break their tension.

And that's good in the office, and in life in general, I suppose, but the dreams don't lie. There is turmoil bubbling beneath the surface. I just wish I had a good way to get rid of it or simmer it down to the point of boiling out the bad stuff and keeping the highly concentrated good stuff for later.

A quality night of deep sleep wouldn't suck either.


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