11:05 a.m. - 07/19/03
the sandman can cause he mixes it with...um...and makes the world taste ... er...
I just woke up from a series of migraine-type dreams, which should have gone on for at least three more hours, so I'm not sure what will happen to me, pushing myself out of bed early and before they were finished. I spent the first part of the night terrified, responding to everything as if it were a nightmare. I'm not sure if I actually woke up with my heart pounding several times, or if I only dreamed I did (gods, how I hate that), but I ended up taking an alprazolam in the middle of the night because I was so scared my heart would pound itself hard enough to burst. Right after that, I started having these dreams where my heart was *always* pounding, whether I was running back and forth or just acting in a really intense and scary scene. (All sexually violent, if only in metaphor, as usual...) I was the star of some show, and I was doing an amazing job; my secret being that I was actually being abused the same ways as I acted in the script, and what I was "acting" was just reality. We kept doing the same piece over and over again, and I was terrified because I didn't know what I was supposed to do. (As always, I just improvised while everyone else seemed to have memorized scripts, marks, and blocking.) Scenes kept appearing or disappearing or reappearing, making things hugely confusing, and at one point there was some really important man who came to see it, and I'd had to run back to the beginning (it went through several rooms and was quite the jog), back to the end, and back to the beginning before we started, and I just could not stop my heart from pounding. (Even now, I'm breathing like it's a luxury that might be taken from me at any moment, and am amazed at the quietness inside my chest.)
I don't remember many scenes. I know that, in the beginning, I kept throwing up involuntarily - which was a relief to whatever small part of me knew I was dreaming because it was a change from earlier involuntary bleeding which is (sickly), sadly, easier for me to take at this point. There was one scene that disappeared and reappeared when the important-viewer-guy was there where all these ballerinas did a quick combination at the bar, and I ran up and did a really horrible attempt at it, the end of which allowed you to see the (stop) vomit on my hands. There was another scene only added toward the very end where a really tall guy flicked this long snake-ribbon-thing right at me. And there was one in a large room where I had to make my way across, and I think I was bawling, and then I jumped around right at the point when there was this really loud noise and we froze. I remember saying something about how great it was that the turn and the noise happened simultaneously, and being told that the noise couldn't be planned, and saying, "Oh, well if you can't plan it...I mean, not that you can't...but if it can't be planned that's ok. I just thought it worked really well." I think my friend Natalie was working the sound, which had something to do with dropping a hat that seemed to be drenched in baby powder...sort of like a huge snap pop, except the small black hat was still visible.
(Natalie later met her idol, Lucille Ball, who came to see the show, and I was really excited for her. Then Lucille turned and saw me and became sort of distracted by how hot my skin was, and I kept trying to turn her attention back to Natalie and not succeeding.)
Does this sound more like a hallucination than a plot-line? Yeah, I thought so...
Also, at one point I went into a room I'd never seen before, and I instantly reacted to the new surroundings, (again, very good "acting") and saw that one of my sister's theater profs was there, and smiled pleased-ly at my success on that one beat.
Anyway, eventually it became clear to two of the girls (was one of them Natalie? I don't remember) that I had serious issues to work through, and they kept trying to help me by making me go to this intervention-type-place (group therapy, one-on-one, crisis help, etc) where they had both gone because apparently they had both also had serious issues to work through... They gave me a flier and I crumpled it up, even hough I wanted to read it. They tried to take me in and I ran (or flew? I don't think I had gravity in this dream either) away. At one point I tried to go in myself, and there were about five late-twenties-ish women walking out holding signs that said things like "PTSD 1", "PTSD 4", "PTSD 2" et cetera, and it was clear to me that they were on some sort of break. I don't remember if I actually made it in that time. I know that the first few times I finally did get in, I walked out or attempted to enough that I got one-on-one crisis-ish help (which I'm pretty sure was my goal...) I didn't want to do anything or talk about anything (or at least I wouldn't do the latter) ... and I ended up back in the play, with steadily more scenes about abuse, and finally I started working with them. The play continued, and there was the time when all sorts of people were there to see it (standing in the "set" - all the different rooms) - the time with Lucille Ball, whom Natalie greeted like a long lost friend: "Ms. Ball, we meet at last..."
Then we were working on a new play, and it was clear that I was getting help. At one point, I stopped the scene and said, "That's all I can do today," and walked out to go meet with the equivalent of my sponsor or therapist or something. Later, she kept pushing me to go into the old scenes, and fight off the people there, screaming no and such, and I tended to freeze (or rather, fry) because I didn't believe I could stop what was happening in the scene. A few times I did. A few other times, I almost didn't, and I ran from it. Once, I ended up glued to the floor (figuratively, even in the dream) when I was supposed to have run, and the person who was supposed to be howling over having not caught me continued to prowl, and this stage-manager-type on the sidelines was instructing all these other people to come back into the scene and resume trying to save me, since apparently I couldn't move.
Eventually, I had come a long way, and the people at the intervention-place were all really proud of me and congratulating me on my success. I was also receiving accolades from an old band director, and then my eighth grade school social worker, whom my sponsor had become... Then all these people started cheering from a distance, and I realized I had fans who wanted to see me, and so I walked up close to this stage and tried to get my heart to calm down. But I was floating (again) and I kept floating in and out of their vision, which didn't help my heart slow or my breathing deepen. It was supposed to be really impressive that I took this time, though, that I didn't perform with my heart throbbing like I had in the past. Finally, I went onstage, and I started to talk, and music started to play prematurely, and I told my stage manager (now a ?friend? of mine from high school who has since assaulted or attempted assualt...I'm not really sure...on a *friend* of mine) I was sorry; I hadn't realized it was timed. That happened once more. The first song was an intro to "Paper Moon" which I hadn't intended to sing; the next was another jazzy piece, also not what I'd intended. Finally, I managed to just take my mic and sing without all the technical hubbub, and I sang "Mary" by Tori Amos...
Then I floated up to this other part of the building, which looked less like my middle school and more like the crisis center and found a girl who was saying how everything totally sucked, and I started singing about when everything totally sucks, and she tried to walk out, and I followed her, and eventually, she broke down and wanted help, too.
Cut into another dream where I was the shy student no one paid attention, too, again with major issues. I remember floating down into a movie theater, down to the very front so everyone could see me, and then speeding off again to confused talk of, "Isn't that the girl from class who never says anything?" By the time I made it out of the theater, I was what they were watching (except now it was a television show...but still "reality" as much as my dreams ever contend to be.) I was trying to catch this person who was walking around with a significant dollar amount in one bill in his hand, and at some point my intention of keeping him from being robbed turned into wanting to rob him myself, and then he turned to me and said it was a set-up, and I zoomed away as all these people scattered in to catch me and force me to get help for my kleptomania.
I turned into the new hit star...and I don't remember all of the traits plaguing my character; I think by the end I was a klepto cheerleading geek (oh, yes) ... and the last thing I remember is going into some sort of club and jumping into a pool. Oh, I had just covered myself in chocolate syrup, also, because I was going to try and get a different part on the show, and the girl I wanted to be was supposed to be covered in chocolate syrup. Oh, and at some point there was a girl who actually had blue skin (like I've sometimes mentioned wanting.) Also, there were Disney channel stars meandering around the whole time. By the end, I actually looked exactly like the semi-evil cheerleader from Lizzie McGuire...whose name I've seen the show enough times to know...Kate. I look nothing like that girl, but I did by the end of the dream.
And that's when I woke up and forced myself out of bed to write all of this, and all I can say is that there's something perhaps even more interesting about migraine dreams than the content of them: as abhorrent and generally scary (though vivid and interesting) as they are, I always feel a push to fall back asleep and continue them. In fact, I did that with the first dream several times, as I was attempting to actually make it to the point where I was offered and accepted help. I wanted to see what would happen then...
Also, at one point the dream I had before I took the alprazolam became a novel written by Joyce Carol Oates, narrated by a guy, but being read aloud by some girl. The chapter ended with him running off with a girl (the girl who was reading? I don't remember) to what I think was France but might have been London, where they did several things one of which was have sex, to which he added "made love", then retracted the comment again. The last line, if I've managed to embed it in my brain correctly was, (the girl's name being Margaret), "Oh, and Margaret's dramatic death. I'll get to that, too, at some point. It really isn't important."
Yeah. Um...
Oh, desipramine, why must you fail me so...?
chord
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