Dying dreams

I sometimes worry before I go to bed. A while back, right around the time my dad got sick, I started having problems sleeping. I didn't have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep was the issue. I'd wake up suddenly, my heart racing at over 100 BPM (my resting heart rate is 60 or so), and I was convinced I was dead or dying. It was surreal. I've always talked in my sleep. When I was a kid, my parents told me about sleep walking. They used to chase me around the dining room table, trying to get me back to bed. I'd have no recollection of any of it. I had a roommate in college--Richard, from Vietnam--who had these horrible dreams. I guess he'd call them nightmares. Richard barely spoke English, so when he would have these bad dreams, he'd scream in Vietnamese. It scared the shit out of me. I'd ask him what he was dreaming about and he wouldn't offer much more than "dreaming of back home." A couple weeks after school started, he began taking these pills that were supposed to stop the nightmares. I assumed they worked because I stopped waking up in the middle of the night, frightened out of my shorts. Little did I know I just got used to them. During the semester, I had a couple of my dorm mates sleep over in our room because of girlfriend issues of their roommates. The next morning they swore they'd never sleep in my room again because of the scary way Richard screamed at night.

I have no idea what happened to Richard or if he is now able to sleep through the night.

Cyndi has gotten used to my talking in my sleep. So much so that she pretty much sleeps through everything unless I shake her. If I do get her attention, she tells me about it the next night. I typically have no recollection of the conversation. But, it most often consists of my freaking out about something. Pacing, rocking, telling her I am dead or dying.

I had a sleep evaluation done after this stuff started happening. They didn't find anything. I figured they wouldn't.

These dreams come in spurts. Some days, I sleep through the night with no problems. Others, I have these dreams that either keep me up, freak me out, or I sleep through them, but when I wake up they seem so real that I have to think about whether or not I am really alive.

Last night was the latter. It was one of those dreams that last all night long. Recurring, continuing, a long dream. I know I woke up in between, but when I'd fall back asleep, I started back where I left off. This one was about me dying, of course. But it was about me knowing the day I was going to die and my having to go around and say goodbye to everyone. People I hadn't seen in years showed up in my dream. Unfortunately, they were mostly people with whom I worked at my last job. Like I had some unfinished business there or something.

The dream was exhausting. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. Exhausting. During the dream, I kept reminding myself, somehow, that I was merely asleep. It seemed so real that I convinced myself I was not asleep, that what was happening was real.

I'm not sure if these dreams have any unhidden meaning. Again, I'm not interested in analyzing them. Or maybe I am. I think it has a lot to do with getting older. Realizing and maybe recognizing my mortality. Am I afraid of dying? Who isn't? Does the fear get easier as I grow older? I'm not sure.

I just wish I could sleep the night without being so consumed by death. My waking moments are enough.