I dream that my
blood count is at 24.957. Up! My doctor says "sure, fine, as long as it's higher than 10." (I love how I invent significant numbers in my dreams. I don't think it can be fractional amounts, or that those numbers are within the normal range. but whatever!) I wake up convinced that this means I need to swallow pills. I realize I forgot to take my pill last night. Oops. I take it at 4 am.
I arrive at work determined to swallow pills today. I ambitiously start with a skittle. gaggggghh. Mini m&ms, maybe. I crunch one by accident, and dissolve three more to their constituent chocolate as mouthful after mouthful of water fails to wash them down. My tongue is determined to hold on to them for dear life. I float an empty gelcap at the back of my throat, but no dice: I can't manage to swallow even the water with my head tilted forward. (I can without a pill there, though. Sigh.)
I'm told when I was a toddler I swallowed a banana almost whole, to the astonishment of my parents. It seems more believable today that it always have, though I don't know why. Seeing my throat constrict and protest at tiny tiny chocolates when it routinely swallows things 8, 16 times as large reminds me that the mind can convince the body to do ridiculous things. I bet I could swallow a banana today if I believed I could. I don't, however, and neither do I believe that I can swallow pills. I believe very strongly in the placebo effect, but part of me also believes just as strongly:
"believing in strange things doesn't mean that strange things will believe in you."