To Sleep, Perchance To Dream

I had really horrible dreams last night. I dreamt that Big Bro had died in a freak electrical accident. Bigger Sis had identified the body and was on TV saying that he had died instantly, which was at least reassuring for the fact that he didn’t suffer. She explained that he still looked like him, for the most part, but that he had burns of some sort on one side of his face or body. She seemed relatively calm and matter-of-fact as she explained it, but I was in floods of tears. My youngest niece was confused and couldn’t understand how it could have happened, which was even more heartbreaking. Then I had to tell Big Sis and my parents about it and I was crying so hard I could barely speak. For some reason, everyone was quite calm, or perhaps they were in shock, and I was the only one having such an extreme, overtly emotional reaction.

Then I was at work and Mini Me and another temp (who was completely fictional) were talking about leaving this week and how much work they were leaving behind and how terrible it was going to be for whoever was taking over the work, completely oblivious to the fact that the person was me. I felt like they were being really insensitive, so I tried to get on with my work and not get involved in the conversation. Then the head of the team I am moving to came past and said, “I’m trying out some panettone [that yummy Italian cake/bread with sultanas or other dried fruit in] now, have you already emailed me your two essays?” I was a bit confused and suddenly had a horrible fear that in order to make my new job official, I was meant to have submitted two essays to him, neither of which I had even been aware of and neither of which I had done. I do actually have two essays to finish in real life (which admittedly I am late in submitting), but they are for my lay-preaching course and thankfully not a requirement for starting my new job.

The dreams were really panic-stricken and I felt anxiety and high emotion the whole time, which doesn’t really help me to feel rested once I wake up. I don’t know why my dreams have got more disturbing and less enjoyable lately. I have always had very vivid and detailed dreams, but often they are quite random in a good way, or really amusing, so I at least wake up feeling entertained. Lately, however, it seems as though I have lots of worries churning around in my mind that aren’t being dealt with. I suppose my brain needs to deal with them and so the worries manifest themselves in this way.

It was weird, because I have had dreams before where I have been really upset and have woken up crying. But in this dream, I didn’t have any sense of having actually cried in real life, although in the dream I was really sobbing and could feel the emotion very strongly, like it was actually happening. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I am feeling exhausted all the time. Aside from the fact that my current mental and emotional condition makes me feel physically drained, these dark mornings and cold temperatures are not helping my energy levels, and when I actually sleep, I am probably using just as much mental and emotional energy with these intense dreams as I would be when I’m awake. If I wasn’t already having trouble waking up and getting up in the mornings, I would think about resorting to Night Nurse again, just to be able to switch my thoughts off while I sleep.