I have
insomnia. I've had insomnia for months. Usually, I will get three or four hours of sleep each night. After four to five days of this, my body is
near collapse and I end up sleeping for twelve to fifteen hours. Obviously this isn't something I want or enjoy, but that's how it is. I've found that when I have these long periods of sleep
my dreams are more vivid, less likely to be remembered, and more
emotionally profound. On normal nights, my dreams are
fleeting and not very fulfulling.
I'm struck by the impact that dreams can actually have on us. I know for myself, at least, I've had some of my most brief and
intense emotional moments upon waking from dreams. I just thought I'd mention that.
Last night I don't remember that about which I dreamt in detail. It was a dream with a
recurring theme: an
old flame that burns now, assuredly, alone.
The last time I wrote a dream log it was roughly the same as this one: there was an inscrutable white mist that hung vivaciously in the air; the sun outside was more
omnipresent than a source; the woman in question had just left me.
In this dream, however, there was a
darkness that seemed to hang about. The formerly bright haze was noticably less alive. I could feel the
hard lump of pain in my throat and the
burning of my eyes. The light indoors was weak and ineffective. The clothing of the woman in question was a black sweater with black pants. My own clothes were dark green pants and a
sweater. Everywhere I looked, details were obscured by darkness where darkness should not have been: the dresser and hanging clothes in the closet melted into each other in black; the television and its stand were a single dark column at the edge of my vision; the bed clothes were a
dark blue; the door was dark green on the inside and outside, not just the outside as it is in reality. I could sense the darkness in the dream, but the
quiet, nagging feeling at the back of my mind was overshadowed by the stronger emotions of the dream.
It seemed to be hours long, and the time traversed was days at least, but I'm sure the
period of time in reality was only several twenty minute spans. The story is the same: she tells me she cannot be with me. I, distraught and lost, return to my old apartment after having moved in with her several months earlier. The next day, she comes to me and asks for forgiveness. I accept and
trepidatiously, but happily, return to my life with her. She acts as though everything is all right, and the needs of my life now are fulfilled in the dream of
then. That's all this dream is, essentially; it is
the manifestation of my own emotional wants and needs of the present in something I desperately wanted in the past.
I no longer love this woman the way I once did. I no longer desire her or a relationship with her.
I do not want her. I do not want what she has. I do not want what she can give. I do not want the dreams of her.
All these dreams do is give me
pain. Every night I live and die. Every night I love and lose,
twice. I awaken and cry to myself in my bed.
I have insomnia, and I am made more tired by this rest.
I need sleep.