Naps = bad. Explain.
This is getting so reliably annoying that I have to think about it here, and not for the first time, I know, but it's getting worse. I've never been one for happy dreams, but for some time the dreams I've had at night, or whenever the main sleep chunk occurs, have been pretty neutral. Yay. But naps? Naps are where the monsters live.
For one thing, they're usually marginally lucid, but always with a tinge (or more) of malevolence. On several occasions I've experienced the sensation that someone has come into the room and is standing next to the bed/sofa/whatever. Someone bad. Someone who may go away if I just lie there and pretend to still be sleeping. But again, only during naps.
Once in a great, great while I have sleep paralysis, which is often associated with feelings of evil. Is napping more likely to stimulate whatever causes those feelings? It says naps and lucid dreaming can be a factor in whether s.p. takes place - does it make sense to have the terror without the paralysis? Again, I've wondered these things before, and increased awareness hasn't helped.
As you may guess, late this afternoon I took a nap. Why? It's summer break; I'd gone into the sunny bedroom (western exposure) to read somewhere other than the sofa; I was still tired from getting up early for training all week; ZONK.
Next thing you know I'm convinced something bad is by the bed, then I fall "back" asleep and dream that I've gotten up after I'm sure the bad thing is gone, only to find the hamsters have been set loose to breed and bite, plus a hamster with cute young is in the sink and I keep accidentally drowning her and the fuzzies whenever I run the tap, which I feel compelled to do every time I get them all dried off and resettled and then want to wash my hands. Also, I keep pulling rocks out of the nest that I think are nearly dead baby hamsters, thus wasting time on reviving them instead of the real hams.
Also, in the dream I can't tell several of the hams apart, so getting everyone back where they should be is completely overwhelming. This sounds like I'm overwhelmed by hamsters in real life, but I swear I'm not. I feel bad sometimes because I know they'd get (even) more individual attention if there weren't so many, but then I consider where they'd be if not here, and I can't feel guilty. The dream was probably just preying upon my natural concerns for their ongoing well-being, or zeroing in on one of the few things I truly love-love, but why does the dream prey on anything?
Does the universe want me to stop taking naps? Why? Believe me, I swear off them every time I have one, but sometimes you're just that tired, whether you "deserve" to be or not. Back off, astral plane.
To recover, I'm reading the new Plum Sykes (not the novel I'm writing my paper on, natch) and eating TexMex carryout from down the street instead of something perfectly good and natural and affordable from the last grocery trip. Maybe the universe is just encouraging sloth?
Okay. Done. Rescind the gargoyles. Thanks.
I <3 naps. I take entirely too many of them. I can't imagine them being bad. That must definitely be terrifying.
Posted by: Freak Magnet | 18 June 2006 at 08:46 AM