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08.26.04 - 12:22 p.m. I had the worst night's sleep ever last night. I decided to go back on the 'ol nicotine patch yesterday, because I stupidly started smoking again while hanging out with the family all last week...go figure. Usually, the patch gives me crazy and vivid dreams, and I sort of grooved on that. I felt like I was watching the Subconscious Variety Hour. However, last night was filled with horrible nightmares. The sort that the only way out is to somehow muster a loud moan or shout from your physical body in the hopes somone will hear and wake you up. The first nightmare was strictly sensory. It wasn't so much that I was seeing horrible images that filled my mind with terror...it was more I was feeling things that scared the shit out of me. It felt as if I was shooting upward at ever faster speeds...it got to the point where I knew I had left the Earth's atmosphere because it was so cold, and I was going so fast my skin all over my body was flapping. It was so damned real. When I got back to sleep, which I didn't want to do, because I knew the patch dreams would be there waiting for me. This dream was one of those where the imagry and fragmented story telling made it impossible to retell it to anyone else. D. wanted me to tell him when I woke him up shouting, but I just couldn't do it. The jist of it was D. and I were living in this very odd apartment with multi-levels. It seemed as if every room, or even half of the rooms were either sunken down or you had to climb a few steps up to the next level. Everything in it was the color of dusk with long shadows and all of the windows looked out to a swirling dark sky. The first thing uncomfortable was I slithered. My arms were straight down agains my sides and I lie on my belly slithering like a snake from room to room. I had to keep on the move always, because whenever I stopped I was accosted by this very real, very evil presense who whispered horrible things in my ear about death and nothingness. I assumed it was the devil who was chasing me, but not the pointy tailed, red skinned variety...a pure evil sort of devil. I remember at one time calling out to God only to hear this loud, maniacal laughter in my head. Whenever I would stop moving, black oil would seep up from the carpet and begin to cover my body. I could feel the ooze creeping over my skin and entering my nostrils and mouth. I felt as if I was being consumed. This re-telling doesn't do justice to the real dream thing, but you get the general idea. For a few minutes this morning, I actually believed in pure evil as very real force. When I woke up, I was in the middle of very bad asthma attack. My asthma has been getting progressively worse over the past week. I haven't been able to use my steroid inhaler for a month, because when I quit my job I lost my insurance and I can't afford to see the pulmonary specialist again. Luckily the doctor I used to work with at my old job is going to call my prescriptions in today, so I can start roiding it up. When I told D about the dream I had he asked, "Were you afraid you might be dying and it was the Grim Reeper chasing you?" When my lungs get this bad, I do take a sobering look at my own mortality. Breathing is a symbol of life, and when this becomes severly impaired you feel a bit closer to your own demise. I know this sounds a bit over-the-top and possibly worthy of a DW award (drama queen,) but tell you what start taking 1/4 breaths all day and tell me how alive you feel. About the patches...this time I did buy the Generic brand, maybe nightmares are what you get when you go cheap? I'm gonna re-think the whole wearing it for 24 hours approach. I'm just going to have to trust I won't get an urge and sleep-walk down to the gas station to buy a pack of smokes in the middle of the night. Now, that would be weird.
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