Welcome to my nightmares

I did all the right things for a good night sleep and all I got was a series of minor nightmares. Seriously brain, can’t you just switch off and let me slumber?

It’s always the transition between Sunday to Monday

With a weekday alarm of 4:30am, I so look forward to an attempt at a sleep in on a weekend. And I say attempt because it’s up to the cat and the kids as to if that actually happens. The cat likes a song and dance to be let out/to be fed/to be noticed at any wee hour between say 3-5am while the kids have their rooms near where I sleep and if it’s a big day in the online gaming world of Roblox, suffice to say I’m going to hear it from the comfort of my pillow.
But regardless of which late morning hour on a weekend I finally zombie stagger out of bed, it’s the switch over from Sunday to Monday that always gets me. I toss and turn, analyse the world, try every trick to switch off unsuccessfully and look at the clock far too many times during the night as I mentally count down the hours to shower time and my next attempt to take over the world.
Luckily my brain autopilot is pretty good at getting me where I need to be and on time otherwise my media career might have come to a crashing halt by now.

So last night (Sunday) I decided I was going to try everything for a good nights sleep and wake up with all turbos firing, ready to run riot on a brand new working work. A refreshed Monday? Well it had to happen so why not now?

First step, move the screens out of the equation

-For an hour and a half I stepped away from the TV and my computer. I put my phone on charge (after setting the alarms first) and then got stuck into a book. For the second time in my life I’m working my way through Gotrek and Felix The Second Omnibus which is a tome so thick, you could probably stop a bullet with it – so there’s no threat of this reading choice running out of words anytime soon.

-I stretched for 15 minutes which felt great. I also broke out the foam roller and pivoted across the floor in some semblance of someone who knows what they’re doing. My much better half Donna bought me it years back but I’ve finally dug it out again and put it to good use, especially work on my back after big days with the barbell.

-When in bed I did some breathing exercises and focused on my muscles relaxing. You work your way down and let sections of your body loosen up and get more comfortable – breathing slowly certainly helps this process. That tip and a few others came from this thread on Reddit, although no one mentioned the slight chance of nightmares.

-And then I tried to sleep. Not counting the moments where I had to check on my daughter due to some irritating mosquito bites and when the cat tried another of her midnight escapes to frolic in the rain or something.

Eventually I got my sleep, but soon enough came the nightmares. And not ‘grip your bed sheets in white knuckle panic’ type of nightmares, oh no. These were laughable but highly confusing mini nightmares, one after the other..

There was this very condescending cop..

For whatever reason I’d rolled up to a crime scene full of sleeping animals? Why I have no idea, but the next thing I know there I was being interrogated and chastised by a police officer who had decided to treat me like I was a five year old. Exaggerated speaking, melodramatic looks every time I said anything and a real ‘You may be innocent but boy oh boy am I going to make you feel like you’re an idiot child’ type of mini nightmare.
And being 42 years old, it’s been a very long time since anyone has made me feel like a five year old. So now there was guilt onboard even though I had nothing to do with it and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Then came the dread of an infraction notice in the mail. And imagine my surprise when I opened the letter to discover that I’d been fined for ‘Using my horn at another driver on three occasions near a school crossing’ which carried the sting of $300 each occasion. I kid you not, when the alarm went off and I walked to the shower in the dark, I did briefly wonder where I was going to find that $900 to pay this imaginary bill off..

I also ended up in my old house, sleeping in my room when a visiting vet wandered through the front door with a cart and mum told me the dog was sick. Thankfully not dead but still ill enough to contact vet on call. And of course I started to fear the worst even though a) that house got pulled down years ago (and they built a hideously looking one in its place) and b) I never saw the dog in question. Maybe it was one of the animals in the first dream having an overly long snooze..

Oh and the car I was driving suddenly started floating, which made steering, braking and regular car use a moot point. I floated and crashed into anything and everything, panicking on how I’d report this one to my insurance company. WTF?

So no death or dismemberment nightmares, no ‘I’m suddenly naked but no one else is’ nightmares, no teeth falling out, no falling through the sky sans parachute. Just the odd, the weird and the slightly worrying nightmares, just not ones strong enough to have me bolt wide awake and seek out the nearest light. Go figure.

After that, maybe I should stay up watching TV and chugging coffee..

I mean if that’s a taste of what happens if you prepare yourself for a solid sleep, I think I might just try and avoid the cruise through nightmares region…
Wish me luck for the next Sunday/Monday transition!