I take a half of a diazepam tablet before going to bed at night. I have struggled with insomnia for most of my life and while I realize that getting dependent on a drug in order to achieve something like sleep isn't a very good habit. The alternative is for me to toss and turn and struggle to sleep and eventually end up sleeping in the next day until 10am to 12 noon, which means the rest of my day is fucked and the cycle will only be worse the following day.
Sorry, but a half of a tablet that doesn't seem to have any ill side effects other than dependency on it that is easily kept in check isn't going to turn me into a homeless crack addict so I will continue to use this almost free drug to get and keep me on a normal human sleeping schedule.
One of the fun side effects of this drug is that it also does some pretty wacky stuff to my dreams and I dream almost nightly while taking it. Here are the rather weird and convoluted parts of last night's dream.
Last night I found myself in a futuristic arcade of sorts that almost had a casino type feel to it. It was filled with mostly pinball machines which is something I love so it is no surprise that these would be in my mind. Then something strange happened because I suddenly felt the urge to get a handgun and I did do so. This is always a pointless venture in a dream because if I actually use the weapon, it doesn't fire hard enough to actually hurt or kill whatever I am shooting it at - it never has. It's just like that old concept of fighting in dreams. It never works and your fists or legs just move in slow motion. I think this is really common.
Anyway, there was a group of people that I met in this dream that were really into nerdy shit like I am and we sat around discussing Star Wars and fantasy films and it was great fun. As far as I can tell from inside the dream these were all new people and not anyone that I know in real life.
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my nerds were people, but who remembers this candy?
This was all fun and games until for some reason a dispute broke out that I don't remember and I pulled out my handgun to try to placate the situation only to discover that is had diminished in size anyway to an absurdly small gun
Then for no reason at all the entire motif of the dream suddenly changed. I was alone and walking around the mall that I am guessing the arcade / casino was attached to and I start feeling a pain in my mouth. It is at this point that I start messing with my back teeth and find that I easily pull them out of my mouth complete with zero pain and the roots and everything intact.
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they just slide right out of there in my dreams
This is actually something that happens frequently in my dreams and as it turns out a lot of other people have this recurring nuance in their own dreams. Some doctors out there have tried to find a reason for this and it was pretty interesting to see what their interpretations was. I'll give some excerpts but the entire article can be found here if you are interested.
- It means that you talk too much and are unware of this bad personality trait
- It means there is some conflict between you and a friend in your life that you need to resolve
- It means you are not a good communicator and have difficulty getting your points across in conversation
- It means you are having difficulty accomplishing something relevant in your real life
Now all of these things seem like a bunch of bullshit made up by a guy that went to school for a long time to have some letter at then end of his name even though he studies something for 6 years that can neither be proven nor disproven. At the same time though I guess some of these things could apply to me because when I go out drinking, I am frequently a big talker because someone has to get the conversation flowing, right? Perhaps I should ask some of my friends if I do in fact talk to much.
Mostly, if I was to interpret the meaning behind this recurring theme in my dream about the teeth I think it would be the fact that I have had a really good oral hygiene program and have good "tooth genes" and even though I am in my 40's I have never even had a cavity. I think it invades my dreams because I fear that this winning streak can't possibly go on and that it's only a matter of time before I am going to go to the dentist and find out that I need 5 teeth filled, a root canal, and some other sort of painful and invasive surgery.
So that was my crazy ass dream last night and while I don't put much effort into trying to figure out what it means, it is funny to me to see PhD's out there that try to interpret everything. For me, it is just nighttime entertainment and I look forward to it all the time.