Insomnia and nightmares

[ellen_datlow]

I had insomnia last night for the first time in awhile--I think I may have drunk some very strong iced coffee (from morning leftovers) too late in the evening. I finally got to sleep then this morning was awakenend by my alarm clock by a nightmare. My dreams are rarely very detailed and I hardly ever dream in color so they're often kind of vague. Thinking about it now I realize it wasn't such a horrible dream and it's sooooo obvious. (most of my dreams deal with things that are consciously or subconsciouly troubling m):

I was walking with some friends in the horror field and then ran into some friends from the science fiction field. I was torn between the two groups and ending up being separated from the horror people. I and the sf folk went into a building where we were on some sort of entertainment reality show. I was chosen (or not) for something and escorted upstairs. The person upstairs was being very nice to me and explaining something and I woke up....It's funny, but relating it now I can't see why it was upsetting to me but at the time I KNEW it was a nightmare.

I don't need interpretations because it's obvious (and I did Jungian therapy for 3 years when I was in my late 20s): As an sf/f/h editor I am torn among the three fields --although consciously I think this is a good thing. Perhaps subconsciously I worry about it.... As far as the reality show: I'm terrified of "performing" ie. giving speeches. (yes, I'm fine with panels, discussions, interviews, workshopping, and the like--as long as I'm not alone up there and performing)....

Now I feel dumb. Is this really what people post about on their blogs? (I'll try to not do it too often! :-) )

Comments

[stevenagy.livejournal.com]

Heh.

Sometimes this is all people post about. Personally, I find it therapeutic since a majority of my friends live far afield.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Well, I promise to do it rarely :-) I DO realize that blogging allows the whole wide world to see into once's mind/life.

Most of my friends live all over the world!

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

Your dream reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Elaine makes friends with the Bizarro versions of Jerry, Kramer and George, and then is caught between both groups on the sidewalk and has to make a choice.

(This is why I'd be an awful therapist. Relating dreams to sitcom episodes is probably not what people want to pay $90 an hour for!)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I've only watched Seinfeld once but that sounds like a funny episode.

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised! I thought all New Yorkers watched Seinfeld!

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Why watch it when you can live it? The only time I ever watched Sex and the City was visiting a friend in Seattle.
(I don't watch tv at home at all and haven't for many years--when I do, it's always while visiting).

yes...

[themadblonde]

dreams are popular posts, but they're rarely this interesting. ;-)

Re: yes...

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

You really think it's interesting? The more I think about it the less interesting it gets :-) Just kidding. I wish I could remember more details. I had a friend who could recount her dreams like stories--very very detailed. I always wondered if she was embellishing them as she retold them. (I suspect she did--but that's because although my dreams are very vivid while I'm dreaming them, as soon as I wake up the details are gone.)

personally...

[themadblonde]

I find them MORE interesting when I can understand them. If someone has some long vague rambling dream that may or may not be significant, _I_ find that fairly dull. But something that clearly shows how the mind translates input (stress, fears, longings) is of interest to me.

Re: personally...

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

One of the most important things I learned through therapy (aside from how to deal with some familial stuff) was how "obvious" some of my dreams were. You can argue all day about how "Jungian" this or that is--I loved the idea of Jungian therapy and even kept a "dream book"--but the fact of it (for me) was that my dreams so totally obviously dredged up whatever was on my mind. (Job fears/fear of losing my parents stuff like that).

I have plenty of those.

[themadblonde]

There are a few recurring dreams I've never been able to figure out but I think they're significant. Just the other night as I was dream-shouting @ someone who'd done something stupid & mean & watching her cry, I distinctly remember thinking IN THE DREAM "huh, if this was real life I'd NEVER be able to make someone else cry." ;-)

Re: I have plenty of those.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I've had a few recurring dreams, too. One is the telephone booth in which I cannot dial the number right no matter how many times I try. Another is (not so much any more) the old performance dream: I can't remember my lines when I'm on stage and the old math anxiety dream: I can't do the math. It's always a relief to wake up and remember: no, I am NOT in a play and no, I never ever have to take a math test again. The telephone...well, I do that on occasion even on push button phones ;-)

wow!

[themadblonde]

I am SO GLAD that I am not the only one w/ anxiety dreams about dialing a telephone! Usually is an old round dial & I'm in some kind of frantic hurry, often to the point of sobbing w/ frustration.

Why can't I have flying dreams like everybody else? ;-)

Re: wow!

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Yup. That's the one. I've rarely had flying dreams :-(

[vylar-kaftan.livejournal.com]

Post whatever you want on your blog. That's what it's here for. :)

I like hearing about dreams.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

hi Vy,
I like your icon:-)

[mallory-blog.livejournal.com]

Actually a lot of us, moi included, post about far more ridiculous topics and even have polls about polls about ticky boxes or dorked out memes everyone pretends to read but doesn't. At least your dreams are sensible - my latest memorable one had an honest to god leprechan in it. He was dressed in green, of course, and looked exactly like the images in grammar school except a bit faded, like I tore him out of a book or something. Not that I would ever shred books for the art (hides pile of books) - he didn't DO anything in the dream but leave me with the memory. Not even a whiff of gold...durn...

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Oh, I occasionally have nonsensical dreams but they're usually even more muddied than my more "realistic" dreams so I forget them as soon as I wake up.

Of COURSE you wouldn't (I'm assuming you've seen my post and the link to the guy who creates art by cutting out old books ;-) )

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

I was walking with some friends in the horror field . . . .

That jumped out at prelim glance as the entry scrolled by, and an immediate visualization - interpretation sprang up of a group of people walking over a field of gouged earth oozing noxious fluids and bones and putrifying flesh -- the aftermath of a battlefield of WWI.

Love, C.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Luckily, no!

[zhai.livejournal.com]

Saying hello since this is the first comment I've left on your journal, but also another vote at finding this post interesting too. :) As well the mention of Jungian therapy. That must have been very interesting. His work is fascinating to me, though I am and will likely remain a synchronicity skeptic, with apologies to P K Dick...

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Hi Erin,
Thanks. As said, I loved the idea of it and I read some books (He and She by Jungian Robert Johnson) but couldn't get around the dated views of the archetypes: males are heroes females are nurturers. blchhhh.

Now, synchronicity I believe in strongly. I can't explain why it happens, but it seems to.

[coppervale.livejournal.com]

Heh. My schedule prevents me from sleeping much. And then when I DO sleep, I end of dreaming about writing (during the writing phase of the books). My subconscious won't shut off.

On the art side, it does.

You shouldn't feel (even subconsciously) split; Paul Barnett and I once agreed on this: EVERYONE likes Ellen Datlow.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

When I used to type up the summary of the YBFH (and have to retype it several times) I would dream of typing--now that was nightmarish!

I'll bet not, but thanks for saying it :-)

[(Anonymous)]

What I learned in Jungian therapy was that the more one wrote down one's dreams the more dreams one remembered. And also that a disturbing dream is often in the mind of the dreamer. Recently a friend called and woke me up (it was 11:30 in the morning, but still) to tell me about a long complicated sequence of dream events that ended with his discovering the couch or cadenza or some damn thing that had been in his grandmother's living room in an abandoned railway yard in New Jersey. While I know that New Jersey is always disturbing whether one is dreaming or not, the rest of it seemed kind of nice frankly, sentimental. Not to him, though, I couldn't make out why.

Rick Bowes

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

You were in Jungian therapy, too? Wow! But yes-absolutely correct. I kept a notebook by my bed and wrote down every dream immediately upon getting up. I think I finished one journal and got half way through a second. I wonder what I did with them? I know I kept them because I put postcards that I loved on each of the two....I'll see if I can track em down one of these days.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Yep, many blogs are all about dreams.

Or nightmares, bwa-hahahahaha!

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Waaaaaa!

[charlesatan.livejournal.com]

Welcome to blogging. =) (There are even blogs dedicated to dreams!)

One thing with dreams though is that sometimes I end up doing things that I wouldn't normally do.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Please no not that!!!

[charlesatan.livejournal.com]

Your next nightmare will be reading nightmare blogs! So which would be worse, doing Jungian interpretations of them, or -gasp- editing them?

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I think interpreting would be worse ;-)

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I have dreams every night in color, with plot and soundtrack. Usually I know what they mean and I spend some time before I get up thinking about them. Sometimes they'd be excellent SF stories. I can lucid dream, too -- I learned that when I was a kid and had nightmares.

I only post the really interesting ones in my LJ, though, which is boring, like today -- good labs and a handyman here to do some stuff, including putting up some new hand-made paper art I had framed. I have another piece by this artist that I've had for ages and I finally found her again from her sister's website and took a drive up into the Appalachians to see her newer work and brought this piece back.

[pm-again.livejournal.com]

I was up all night too.

Hope that you're able to fall asleep and have pleasant dreams.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I drank more coffee this evening at dinner so we'll see. I hope so. But I don't have to get up early tomorrow so that's a plus.