Thursday, July 30, 2009

We are such stuff as dreams are made on

We saw Anton Corbijn's “Control” on Sunday. Spectacular movie, even though I'm not really a Joy Division fan. Black and white, long sweeping shots, and so mind-numbingly tragic I think it's a good idea to hide away any razorblades you have at home if you're going to see it.

On Sunday night I had nightmares. If you know anything about Joy Division, you know how that particular story ends. To me it wasn't surprising that I dreamed of Henrik. So sleep was frequently interrupted, and I was a very unhappy camper on Monday morning.

Then, between Tuesday and Wednesday, I had nightmares again. And bad. Really frickin' bad. I woke up screaming, at 0330. I haven't done that since I was fifteen or so, dreaming of falling endlessly into darkness. Unless you count that one time when a painting fell off the wall over the bed and landed on my leg.

This time the nightmares were all nooses, dead bodies and spiders. Big hairy fuckers. Spiders are the emissaries of Satan, only eclipsed by earwigs, who are actual children of Beelzebub. And the nooses, swinging from rafters, from staircases, made from rope, extension cords, wire. Bodies strewn all over, cold and dead. So I woke up screaming, and during what little sleep I had the nightmares continued to plague me.

Photo by Lynn Radeka. Used with permission

I really do believe that dreams are all about the subconscious processing things that your conscious mind can't or won't. I know I still have a lot of issues around his death, and that my number one fear is the death of those closest to me. The most powerful dreams I've ever had have been about death and loss, usually involving people I care deeply about.

So what to do? I'm not sure there's anything I can do. This time the nightmares were obviously triggered by the film, so maybe I should avoid pop culture references to suicide, especially by noose. Then I guess it's all down to time. That and maybe a couple of therapy sessions...

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