Sunday of my Life

So, tonight I was asleep (and yes, I know what you’re thinking “There’s a real surprise Adrain. You? Asleep? I Always through you were some weird aline hybrid that didn’t require sleep!”). Whilst sleeping I had a nigtmare. This nightmare wasn’t anything new to me, I’ve had it, or at least ones similar to it, many times before. Nightmares are a very regular occurance to me, and this one didn’t really differ in content to the others. It was the usual stuff, me confined in a small dark area, then being chased throguh pitch-black corridors by something unseen but nonetheless menacing. As with all nightmares it will usually build up to a certain point then, once the adrenaline levels get high enough, I’ll wake up sweating a very frightened, to the dim glow of the nightlight in my room, seeing the red points burning in the darkness of my television’s stand-by light and the hanging red blur (becuase I’m not usually wearing my glasses) of my alarm-clock telling me it’s far too early for me to be awake.

But.. have you ever had a time where a dream blurs into real life? It can be a pleasant thing if it’s a pleasant dream, but it’s not the kind of thing you want to have happen with a nightmare. Well… tonight, we had a power failure. Things seem to meld in perfectly together, becuase just before I woke up I was in this dark little room, and it felt like the walls were closing in on me, then I woke up, to find myself… in a dark little room. I paniced, in every true sense of the word. I had my first panic attack for a while. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, I just had to get out of there. So I jumped out of bed, and promptly fell flat on my face becuase the bedsheets were tangled around my legs.

I’m glad to say that things pretty much ended there, becuase smacking my forehead against the corner of my chest of drawers, as well as giving me a nasty lump and opening a cut on my forehead, also shook me enough to bring me back to my senses. I always keep a candle and box of matches next to my bed, so I lit it up, and there was light. I saw it, and knew it was good, so I tried a meditation technique a friend of mine taught me to calm myself down. I focused on the candle flame, only it, pouring my entire concentration, being, mind nad soul into it, thinking of nothing else but the flame, studying its light and the way it moves in the slight air currents in my bedroom. I stayed like this for a long while, watching the candle slowly burning down, inhaling the scent for melting wax and burning wick, letting the candle absorb my senses. I barely noticed the time pass, or the power come back on ( the slight surge caused by the restoration of power was apparently enough to blow the tiny globe in my nightlight though, so I must get a new one). What finally brought me out was the light of dawn leaking through my window.

I was amazed though… it worked. I was calm, and relaxed like I haven’t been for the longest time. I think I’m going to have to make this part of my usual routine, becuase it it seems to work very well for me, so much so that I can sink into it and lose all awareness of the world around me. This is quite a change to me, becuase normally my fears are centered in knowing everything that’s going on around me. Not knowing them, not being able to see them (hence the darkness fixation I have) is what frightens me. But, doing this meditation technique, I lost all awareness of time passing, of anything that was going on around me, and I found peace in it, not fear. This certainly gives me several things to think about… but for now it’s time to go and slap a band-aid on my forehead and take some betadine to the cut to ensure I don’t get an infection.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 13th, 2005 at 5:18 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.