I’m not putting up “Readers’ Wildlife’ today as we have only a few contributions left. Please help out by sending in your good photos.
Yesterday was one of those unpredictable nights when I hardly slept at all. Perhaps it’s because I drank ONE MEASLY GLASS OF WINE before dinner, and wine interacts badly with my new sleeping medication. But sometimes I can have wine with dinner and it doesn’t affect my sleep. It seems unprecictable. I’m going to try weaning myself off sleep medication because life without wine is intolerable. As they say on television, I’ll ASK MY DOCTOR.
Anyway, I slept on and off, but not more than about two hours total. I finally dozed off, having a bizarre dream in which I was with an old girlfriend in Florida, which for some reason was next to the University of Pennsylvania (it was a dream, Jake!). We were staying in a long, pink hotel, but I suddenly got lost and couldn’t find it again. I was unable to find my girlfriend, and discovered that my cellphone was missing as well. I asked a passerby to lend me her cellphone so I could call 911 and perhaps find my girlfriend through a “missing persons” report, but the woman refused to lend me her phone. The dream was so realistic that I woke up in terror, and it took me a minute to realize that it was just a dream. At least I no longer have the Academics’ Dream in which you’re in school but can’t find the room for the final exam, or are taking the exam but haven’t studied all semester.
Anyway, as I tossed and turned and tried not to get more anxious by worrying about staying awake, I had a series of thoughts. I meant to write them down, but you know how hard it is to get up in the middle of the night to write stuff. I remember three things.
1.) This is something I noticed while watching the NBC Evening News, which of course advertises a lot of drugs for the ailments of the aged (the t.v. news demographic leans OLD). Nearly all the new drugs they advertise have an “x”, “y” or “z” in them. Examples: Ozempic, Breztri, Keytruda. And none of those drug names are appealing, as they don’t make you optimistic or even suggest what the drug is for.
2.) I regretted that, as I grow older, I learn more about humans and how to deal with their issues. The regret is because you should be born old and then get younger, so you’d enter the world with a built in stock of learned wisdom. This would save a lot of problems. (I’d stop the “younging” process at about 25.) And here is one thing that I’ve learned (I may have said this before):
When someone calls you in distress, or has a problem they want to talk about, I first try to find out what the person needs. I call these the “three H’s”:
a. Help: a tangible solution to their problem. Males are more likely to want solutions and to offer them. Often women simply want b):
b. Hearing: Someone to simply listen and sympathize. This is often the best thing to do since many problems defy quick solutions, and I’m not a therapist.
c. Hugging: Sometimes physical contact, like an affectionate hug or a squeeze of the hand, might help. This has to be done in person, and must be used sparingly lest it be mistaken for a romantic gesture.
Before saying anything, I try to ascertain what the person in distress wants.
These thoughts may have been triggered by reading Abigail Shrier’s terrific new book on the maladaptive effects of therapy, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up. I recommend it highly.
3.) Once again I mused on the penchant of Brits (and some Americans) for tea over coffee, especially in the morning. I like the taste of good tea, and enjoy it as part of a conversation or, upon occasion, as a restorative in cold weather. But I can’t fathom why Brits use it to wake up. Perhaps it’s my upbringing, but be aware that a cup of tea has only half the caffeine of an equal-sized cup of coffee. Tea doesn’t seem to me to be an effective wake-up drink. (Note: I am NOT dissing tea drinkers!). If you want a non-coffee drink with lots of caffeine, try yerba mate brewed strongly. Brits should weigh in.
I had other thoughts as well, but I can’t remember them. I need a voice recorder by my bed that records only when you speak. Then I’d have a lot to say here!
Of course this is also a prompt for readers to disgorge their own midnight thoughts, or reveal their dreams, particularly recurring ones.
My midnight thoughts involve fretting over the loss of a job in a dream despite knowing full-well (in my dream) that I was retired and needed no job. I’ve fretted over this for several days now.
As this is a very expressive piece of writing, perhaps I can proffer from my quote collection – and apologies, these are not with references/sources :
“I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.”
“Nothing so frightens me as writing, but nothing so satisfies me. It’s like a swimmer in the [English] Channel: you face the stingrays and waves and cold and grease, and finally you reach the other shore, and you put your foot on the ground—Aaaahhhh!”
Both quotes from Maya Angelou
…. can’t resist a personal note :
I found immediate life improvement since getting ~20 min vigorous exercise every day (ideally). Sleep, moving around, etc. immediately better. And I also was struggling in my own way … I have longer dreams too, maybe.
Even stretching helped, I think.
🖖
Dreaming is so weird, where impossible things can happen and yet they don’t illicit too much surprise. My favorite variety of these is when I can will myself to fly. By wanting to make it so, I am suddenly lifted from the ground to soar above the trees. My dream-self will then always think “Huh. I’d forgotten I could do this.” meaning that I am remembering previous dreams where I could do this, as there is some continuity of memory from dream to dream. As I float back to gently touch the ground again, I always feel slightly puzzled that I can fly, but only slightly. It never seems like a big deal.
I love flying dreams! They always seem so real and natural. One aggravating recurring dream is losing my teeth – they just come out for no apparent reason – and I attribute this to a tooth-busting car crash decades ago. Because of all of the dental work, I also dream about pulling an endless amount of string out of my mouth, the type of string that dentists use to retract the gum line. Disgusting 🙂
Once in a great while, I have a dream that I can fly — just a little bit.
I have this little boat-like thing that I sit in and it will fly just above the ground at my will. Charming. My wife has proper flying dreams where she can soar above the earth and look down and marvel at it. I wish I had those too.
About the continuity of dream memories, I used to have recurring dreams where I live in an apartment that doesn’t exist in reality (at least not in my waking life), and it was the same apartment from dream to dream.
Same with me, several of them; but houses, not apartments.
Dreams: one of my recurring ones is of deciding to walk to a part of London I know well, because I have plenty of time. Of course I get lost, realise I’m late, panic, try to run but find I can’t, reach somewhere I know is miles from where I want get to…it goes on. When I wake up, it sometimes feels like the dream has been going on for hours, although probably it’s only been a few minutes.
Also on dreams: there is a prewar story about a woman who dreamed what she thought was the most moving poem ever. Half asleep, she scribbled some lines down, and dozed off again. Next morning she picked up the note with great excitement and read:
Hogamous higamous,
Man is polygamous.
Higamous hogamous,
Woman monogamous.
This tale is sometimes told about the philosopher William James, but there is no firm evidence connecting him with it.
Tea: I just prefer the taste.
Getting lost on the way to work is a recurring dream; in fact, I had one just before I woke up this morning.
Frustration dreams are common. I used to manage a movie theater and still dream about being there. The other night I had one; it was showtime and I didn’t know which movie to run. I looked at the poster case and there was no poster in it, and so on.
And even though I have been out of school since 1982, I still have the dream where it’s exam day and I realize that there’s a class I forgot to attend all semester.
I believe the lost profundity incident happened to William James – he was given nitrous oxide for some minor surgical procedure and while he was under it, he had some tremendous epiphany, found the answer to all of life’s greatest and most intractable problems, but when he came down, all that he could remember was “Overall, there was a strong smell of onions”.
Zest Tea has 135mg of caffeine. I have it every morning, in a large beer mug.
https://livezesty.com/products/pomegranate-mojito-high-caffeine-tea-bags?selling_plan=596443223
I get it from Amazon on a subscription every 6 weeks or so.
“Academics’ Dream in which you’re in school but can’t find the room for the final exam.”
Waiters in restaurants have that also. Your station is jammed, you can’t get food out of the kitchen, and the hostess seats a new party of six at your last table.
Sometimes the chef hates you and is laughing.
Terrifying.
I call those school anxiety and work anxiety dreams. My ultimate was once dreaming that I had an Algebra test, although I hadn’t take Algebra for 30 years. I thought I could probably get through it. The real problem was that I can (in the dream) a customer meeting that same day, and I didn’t know if they conflicted! 🙂
Wow where to start: I too have nights of tossing and turning with only a couple of hours sleep much like you have described for several years. At first thought it was correlated with alcohol before or with dinner, but, thank ceiling cat, that was not it. I will almost gladly go sleepless to continue with occasional scotch or wine. A Nexium pill when my stomach bothers me helps that part and also thus allows me to sleep better. But the problem persists on occasion and being retired, I sometimes just go into another room, turn on the light and read, letting the next day take care of itself.
Regarding Brits and morning tea rather than coffee. It was my experience in my time with colleagues in the UK, that morning for them was 9:00 as opposed to my 5:00 or 6:00 when I was home in USA. So they really did not require caffeine. We always had a coffee after lunch, then tea again in late afternoon. I think civilized is a word one might use to describe it.
I still require coffee, with caffeine, even if I sleep in and get up around 10. At least I believe I require it.
You’re not alone. Last night I tossed and turned and tossed and turned and tossed… finally falling asleep enough to dream that I was about to step up to the plate to bat. But at about the time the pitcher was starting his windup, someone realized that the plate was in line with a tree. So, we (the pitcher, catcher, me, the umpire) started to look for a better place to put the plate. We couldn’t. Each position was a little off. Anyway, when we were just about to find a suitable location for the plate I woke up—not knowing if I would be able to hit off this pitcher or not. His face was one of intimidation, but the more we fussed over the position of the plate the less I feared him. I think I could have hit him, but never got the chance.
I still dream about being a fourth year graduate student who has done a bunch of theoretical work for my dissertation, but who hasn’t done anything empirical. So I’m not sure if I have enough content for my dissertation. In the dream, I worry that I’m going to have to disclose to my advisor that I’ve not done my empirical work, hoping that he will allow me to have entirely theoretical dissertation. In one version, I’ve been a graduate student and teaching fellow for decades before telling him that I haven’t done enough to finish! At that point I usually wake up, realize that I’m 67 years old, and that I completed my dissertation successfully long ago.
I hope that you find relief with your insomnia. It’s a tough problem. WRT your insomnia and with this post, are you in need of (1) Help, or (2) Hearing, or (3) Hugging? Maybe your correspondents on this site can provide a bit of (2) or (3).
I’m British, and I start my day with a cup of tea. It has to be brewed correctly, and that means using water from a freshly-boiled kettle. The tea must be allowed to infuse for at least three minutes to extract the full flavour (and maximum caffeine!).
I never order tea in American restaurants. It invariably consists of a sad tea bag sitting in a cup of tepid water. American restaurant coffee, by contrast, is almost always excellent, and refills are usually free. This is an admirable arrangement, and one that I wish British restaurants would emulate.
I grew up in Australia/NZ and lived as a young man in Japan for a long time.
I’ve noticed how the British and the Japanese fettishize tea in a similar way.
See Helen Pluckrose (atheists and anti-wokes here will know her) long opinions about tea. She’s typical in that retard.
I’m a coffee guy but my upbringing and time in Japan make me appreciate “black” – what Japanese call non-green tea – and green tea.
I don’t believe ANY of the “health benefits” however. Not harmful, just FUN!
D.A.
NYC
I used to frequently have the academic’s dream exactly as described above, but I didn’t know why because I didn’t consciously feel stressed in school.
Now my most common bad dream is about my phone. I can’t find it, or it’s not working, or I can’t remember how to operate it, at a time when it’s really crucial for me to make a call or get directions or whatever.
Again I don’t know why — I don’t consciously fear my phone not working.
I wish I could understand more about my subconscious mind.
I had a similar phone-based dream only the other night. I had to send an urgent SMS to my daughter. But the phone keyboard had shrunk so that the letters were only a couple of millimetres across, and I couldn’t touch the right ones. The message kept coming out garbled and I had to keep starting again. I never managed to send the message, and I woke up feeling stressed and frustrated!
Haha — I’ve had the same one — the shrunken keyboard !
My “can’t find it” dream is usually around my camera gear, which I have carried my entire adult life and protect very carefully.
Either I can’t find my cameras or they are broken or some (evil) person has swapped my nice rig for a bunch of crap.
I would be gutted!
+1
Oh, I get this one, and I hate it. It starts with me being in a situation that’s somehow going wrong, and I soon realise it would be easily fixed by calling someone. However, I can’t use my phone; I either can’t find the right contact, don’t have the number, or (most often) have lost all dexterity in my fingers, and they become useless. I get this horrible feeling of impotence as things go downhill, and then I wake up.
Another weird thing I experience is that whenever I dream of being at home, it’s always at the exact location: my childhood home. I have NEVER dreamed of being at home anywhere else, even though I left there when I was 18, and I’m now 52. I dreamed of being there last night.
This last anecdote may appear sad at first, but it had a profoundly positive effect on me. It also shows how intertwined our dreams are with our waking lives. When I was 12, I became instant best friends with another boy called Dave. We were very close through school; even before we met, we had aspired to attend the same university. We both got accepted, and we studied and travelled worldwide together. After university, we worked in the same city and remained extremely close, even after we’d both become fathers. Then, when we were both 35, he died suddenly.
Unsurprisingly, I found this difficult to deal with, and it affected me badly for many years. I used to get intense and horribly dark dreams about him dying regularly, at least every week. They were just dreadful and made me feel terrible for days afterwards. I had a therapist at the time, but the dreams were so upsetting that I couldn’t bring myself to mention them to her. Eventually, about four years ago, I became desperate and managed to blurt out some details. As always, she dealt with it perfectly. We talked about it, and since then, I’ve never had another of those dreams. I know that I won’t ever have one again because, although I still miss him, it feels like a weight was lifted, and I don’t feel that desperate anger and sadness anymore.
I’m pretty sure that those dreams were the biggest factor in healing me. There must be some mechanism behind it, although I have no idea what it is or how it works. However, the dreams undoubtedly made me confront things that were hurting me, and without them, I’d still be in the same frame of mind about the whole situation.
I’m terribly sorry about your friend. Your dreams speak vividly to the impact of such shocking events on people’s lives.
I too lost somebody I loved as much as I love myself, and in a terrible traumatic way. And I also dreamed about her constantly, for years and years. But unlike your dreams, my dreams weren’t about her loss, but about when we were still together. These dreams were invariably happy and so vivid that the sense that she was still in my life would bleed into my waking hours. Even though it was a total delusion, these dreams went some way towards filling the hole that her loss had caused me. I believe that without those dreams, I’d have died of grief.
Thank you and I’m so glad that you were able to have happier dreams about the person you lost. It is remarkable that our minds can be so creative outside of our conscious awareness. Dreams can be unpleasant but by and large I find them amazing. Most of mine (that I remember) are adventures that I don’t want to end.
Over the last few years I have had a couple of good dreams that feature my friend and hopefully I’ll have more in time. I’m pleased that your dreams helped you as it sounds like you had a very difficult time dealing with your loss.
All the best.
The Academics’ Dream. You tried to find the final exam room?! My version generally took the form of it being final exam week and it dawning on me that I had registered for some class but had never attended. The short form had me remembering earlier in the semester but well after the add/drop period.
Strange how bits of reality work their way into one’s sleep!
That’s the usual form of my academic dream too: Show up for the final and realize that I hadn’t attended class the entire semester. Argh!
Interesting how many people have this academic dream in one form or another. Mine was not studying any of the books assigned. Maybe it is the ultimate “failure” dream because it can’t be corrected. High school physics was my nightmare. At the final exam, I secretly opened my text book in my lap for answers, hoping I wouldn’t be discovered. But I was…the teacher saw the book, and just had a wide grin and a no no finger in response. In college at an economics exam, I didnt understand and couldnt come up with any answers so I left my paper blank, and went into a wonderful calm state of nirvana, sitting at my desk relaxed and happy that nothing bad was happening. I wonder how I and others could achieve this same state when we face something traumatic.The brain produces some kind of chemical that banishes
worry and fear and panic, like getting high.
I find that while I can usually sleep alright, I often wake up around 5am and the sleep only fitfully until it’s time to get up. I’ve been exercising in the mornings, so I get up earlier. That at least ends the pain earlier.
As to dreams, they are, indeed, weird. I will say one of my favorite things about dreams is the chance to see old friends who have died.
Saturday night I had a dream where I was telling a friend (not dead) about a building that collapsed, and I woke up wondering if that was something that actually happened. By the end of the day, I realized that it wasn’t.
I’ve always been a tea drinker. Now that I have cut sugar out of my diet as far as is practical, I need more and more caffeine in the morning, and find myself have two or three large mugs.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=K47-bhZsVgM
https://youtube.com/watch?v=rmLittZzn3U
Maybe if you relax with “cat yoga” you can get some sleep. 🐱💨💤
I have discovered over recent months that a cup of coffee at about 21.00hrs will help to give me a good nights sleep. I know that it shouldn’t but for some strange reason it does so I’ll go with it.
As a brit I don’t drink tea at all, I can’t stand the taste. I’ve often thought that my mother must have been having dreams about a USofA citizen when she was carrying me cos coffee is the only drink for me.
HA! Your insomnia night/s sound a lot like mine.
And AGE is the enemy of good sleep – for many, many people.
I’m sorta retired like you (though we both write, you have a much busier schedule than I, which is great b/c I so enjoy WEIT).
On insomnia nights I pretty much have run of the apartment (wife across the way), I have puppers, kitchen, vapes, internet. Ahem… you ever though of getting a d*g, PCC(E)? It is life changing. I was a cat person – didn’t like dogs at all – all my life until at 40 we got a dog. Witnesseth:
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/
It makes living in a city much better – so many social connections. Pricey for sure but you’ve got the dough. For the childless like us all our money is discretionary!
Being an insomniac today is better than in, say, the pre-internet era. My apartment is high, 14th floor, and I like to watch the night-time city move and wake up, Sth and west Manhattan is spread out before me and I feel like a god.
Kids today ask how we got by without the internet. I wonder that myself even though I’m 53. “It was hell, kids, hell. So much boredom! And dreadful TV.”
best regards,
D.A.
NYC
Alas, the pictures of you and your dog are no longer showing up. But I envy you, living in Manhattan. I think 14 stories up is just right – high enough for an exhilarating vista, but not so high that you really aren’t even in the city anymore.
I could never be without a dog. It’s a bit like spoiling a child, only they are meant to be spoiled and they grow up to be … a dog. Being indulged is their purpose, and they love you like nothing else can.
I’ve never had the ‘academic’s dream,’ but returning from his exam my college roommate did wake me up and say, “John , didn’t you have an African History exam this morning?” Yikes!
There went the A!
I too have had the “academic” dreams where I’ve forgotten to study for an exam. When I was a young man, I was also a competitive athlete (runner and cyclist) and I often had dreams where I was running as fast I could but wasn’t moving.
Occasionally I have dreams where I’m falling. I wake just before I hit the ground. Ugh.
I hate my dreams. They are, for the most part, tedious and/or so stressful that I wake up with my heart pounding. My dreams seem to return to these two same themes, over and over:
1. I’ve got to do something urgently (e.g., pick up a child from camp), but I encounter endless obstacles.*
* I wrote the above before reading everybody’s comments and I’m fascinated to note that MOST people seem to have this kind of dream. in fact, Jerry’s dream – where he is constantly thwarted in his effort to find his girlfriend – fits this theme perfectly. (I also can’t help but adding that my first thought upon reading the words “long pink hotel” was shamefully Freudian!).
2. I’m beating my head against a wall in an effort to make my ex husband understand something important. What drives me crazy about these dreams – besides their unpleasantness – is the fact that it’s been 20 years since my divorce. You’d think my subconscious would have moved on by now!
There are some drugs that supposedly cause people to have more vivid dreams. I wouldn’t mind taking them if they also changed the nature of the dreams. E.g., I’d love to fly in my dreams, or at least get out of my dreaming rut.
I love my dreams,. They often contain jokes, which are only funny if one doesn’t know the punchline in advance. Yet my brain must know the punchline in advance. Why do I still laugh at the joke? Sometimes it makes me smile even after I wake up.
I never had the academic’s dream. I liked taking tests, I enjoyed the concentrated intense effort required.
I find extended physical activity to be the best sleeping drug.
I also liked taking tests, and never had any problems with them. Yet I had the academic dream again and again until a few years ago. It was always about having to do my final (high) school exams all over again, and the rest just like Jerry described.
You bring up an interesting point. I’ve found it peculiar that in some of my dreams, I experience total surprise at something that happens. It doesn’t make sense. After all, I’m not just an actor in my dreams, I’m the playwright! It’s like Shakespeare dreaming he’s a character in Romeo and Juliet and being surprised that they die in the end.
Yes, exactly!
I would love to have jokes in my dreams.
One detail that I recently discovered about my dreams is that when I approach someone, I can read their thoughts. When this was noticed I was a bit surprised, but then remembered that this was always true about other people in dream-world.
I think my most common dream is The AcademicDream. I am told this is common in people with a lot of formal education, who have obviously spent a lot of their younger lives writing exams. In my Academic (anxiety) dreams I not only did not study the subject, I never attended any lectures, I can’t find the exam room and in addition can’t find the university where the exam is taking place!!
It was real for me. I walked into the wrong exam room on the first day of my first-year exam in engineering school. I had already sat down when the mistake was pointed out to me. When I got to the right room at the top of the structures lab, the exam was under way. I wasn’t dreaming.
Wow! Ouch!
For a couple of decades now drug brand names often include a ‘z’ or an ‘x’ (maybe two for the truly potent ones). I’ve read that marketing studies have shown that the public perceives a drug with a ‘z’ or an ‘x’ in its name is more powerful. “Ozempic’ is a masterly example, with not only a ‘z’ but a hint of olympian grandeur.
There is also a tendency to use fake latin-sounding names, often ending in an
‘a’ – just as there is with car model names. Fexofenadine would be an example, sold as Allegra. But the oldest among us will remember when drug names had actual latin in them, or at least were referencing a latin term. An example would be the ant-depressant doxepin, sold in the UK under the name Sinequan – a reference to sine qua non, without which, nothing.
More humdrum names include that for the PPI omeprazole, Losec – low secretion (of gastric acid). And then there are the computer generated letter combinations, that are checked to make sure they are pronounceable by the populations where they are to be sold (eg Tagamet, Inderal and the quickly withdrawn Eraldin*)
*Bonus points of you know the connection between those three drugs. And yes, Eraldin is an anagram of Inderal, and it was deliberate.
Apropos drug names containing the letter X, I can never forget the long list of side-effects of Xenical in ads on American TV in the early 2000s, delivered sotto voce at a rapid pace. These included oily discharge (what, like the Exxon Valdez?) and faecal urgency (keep a clear path between you and the bathroom at all times!). This still makes me giggle like a 10-year-old.
I think it was “urgent loose bowel movements and the inability to control them.” But the voice was speeded up so all that came out in about 0.75 seconds (just like the……well, the Boss says this is a family site!)
One of the dastardly things the pharma industry has done for decades is to make the generic name insanely complicated and difficult to remember, while the brand name is much simpler and easy to spell. They do this to encourage that docs will continue to write the brand name product, not the generic version. It often works.
Maybe not true everywhere, but pharmacists can substitute a generic for the brand name drug here, unless the script has a box checked that says ‘Do not substitute.’
And those three drugs above were all invented by Sir James Black, who won a Nobel for his new method of designing the shape of a molecule to fit the shape of the receptor. Before him, it was all trial and error. Smart man, but a lousy lecturer!
All the doc has to is write “DAW” (Dispense as Written) after the drug name here in the US. A lot of them do, rather than have took it up.
I almost never have any dreams that I can remember, because I almost never seem to sleep deeply enough (though that’s probably an illusion). In any case, I can remember (roughly) the last time I had a good night’s sleep: It was in the mid-1990’s. My sleep has never been great, even when I was a child, and it has gotten worse over time.
Even taking Benadryl (or similar medications, OTC or prescription) only gets me about four hours, and then I am groggy–but not SLEEPY–for the rest of the day. Alcohol only makes my sleep and chronic pain worse. Mostly what happens when I wake up–several times a night, usually starting about 1 am–is that I long for something like a V-fib arrest in the middle of the night. I feel like a soldier trying to sleep in a battlefield, always watchful lest some emergency happen. That was useful when on call during residency. It’s not so useful now.
I don’t remember the last time I woke up to my alarm. But I do remember that it used to make me rapidly hyper-alert, as if someone had just called General Quarters, and I would tend to sit up instantly and shut it off as quickly as possible. Nowadays I usually just give up on sleep by about 3:30 in the morning.
I SINCERELY hope that PCC(E)’s insomnia resolves or at least improves. This is no way to live.
Man, if you want to sleep, take a low dose of Remeron, an antidepressant. I took a low dose (Weirdly, higher doses don’t do this) once. I slept for three days. When I woke up, I felt great. Completely refreshed.
Unfortunately, I’ve tried all the various antidepressants and such (including Remeron various SSRIs, tricyclics, SNRIs, trazodone, etc.) not just for sleep but for their intended purpose. It didn’t really help much. I think my nervous system is just a little too weird, or something. Even the cannabinoids just make me throw up.
If you were prescribed Remeron for depression, your MD probably prescribed a higher dose to start, which doesn’t have the same effect on sleep. You might want to check.
In any case, good luck with your journey. 🙂
Is CBN, the “sleep” cannabinoid, available where you are? Works for some, including me. Also, bad things seem to dominate your postings. Try limiting your reading, thinking, and postings (more cartoons and cat videos, please) to good things for a week. See how it goes.
Sorry for your insomnia, Jerry! Insomnia is bad. I am very lucky to be more or less unaffected by it.
That is amazing (that you no longer have that dream). I’ve heard and read that every college graduate has that dream. I believe it. I still have it from time to time but less frequently than when I was working. Strangely, I never had it when I was in college.
Your “three Hs” is good advice, in my opinion.
Academic Dream: used to have them. I’d be writing furiously but when the three hours were up only half the first page was done!
Haven’t had one in years (I’m 73).
Never drink coffee or tea.
As to wine, I feel your pain. I don’t take sleep medication but am still having problems with sleep and alcohol.
To frame my personal dilemma, I have loved wine since my undergraduate days (a very long time ago now), and have built a modest but substantial wine cellar. In my spare time I have taught wine appreciation classes and traveled to visit wine regions in various countries. I have friends who make their living in the wine trade. It is hard to imagine life without wine.
And yet, the aging process seems to be demanding a price for my continued relationship with the grape. Even a fairly modest amount of wine now diminishes my sleep in a very material way. My dreams (such as they are) to be vivid and often not enjoyable. And I never feel as good the next day as I do on days when I had not consumed any alcohol the night before.
So I have cut back, but it’s hard. To be clear, I have always been responsible with alcohol; I have never drunk excessively nor had any sort of alcohol dependency. I do not drink any form of alcohol other than wine. But ensuring my quality of life at this point is requiring that I let go, at least by degrees, of something I love dearly. I doubt I will ever let go of wine entirely, but my enjoyment of it will never be quite the same.
I wish you the best of luck in your struggles with insomnia. I hope you are able to find a solution that lets you live as you wish.
Your dreams are my dreams. Could be a generation thing…
Jerry, I really recommend that you ask your doctor about TRAZODONE for your sleep issues. It’s non-addictive, it’s very effective, and with your insurance it’s only pennies per night. Best wishes.
I’m a Brit. I start the day with a cup of tea because it’s somehow, for me, a more refreshing drink than coffee, but I follow up shortly with coffee. I might say that caffeine has little effect on me as a stimulant, and I have no difficulty taking coffee as a late night drink.
All my dreams are apocalyptic. They often involve some sort of building & trying to accomplish something in a group. I often don’t remember the details but always have the apocalyptic feeling.
We don’t have advertisements for prescription type drugs in Australia, but I have some familiarity with a few different drugs and the naming strategy does seem to fit the pattern mentioned.
My sleeping medication starts with a Z.
I don’t remember my dreams often but just the other day my alarm went off inadvertently because I forgot to reset it and I was in the middle of a dream relating to my work from which I’m now retired. The details are different than other dreams mentioned but loop of irresolution was the same. Every action I took to get back to work on time was thwarted and I was getting quite worried. Then I woke up.
Haven’t you academics graduated to the faculty-level dream of finding yourself at a strange institution, unable to find the room where you’re scheduled to give a seminar? Then you realize that you’re also scheduled to teach a class at the same time, in another unfindable location, on a topic you know nothing about. Then you can’t find your plane ticket/your passport/your luggage/your phone/a taxi to the airport (sometimes all five) and you know you’ll never get home… It’s always a relief to wake up.
I have had the scholastic / corporate life terror dreams so often I now really enjoy them, and laugh in my sleep.
Exam week approaches, I discover my class schedule, and realize I have not attended any of them. I don’t recognize the campus – it is a crazy blend of my prep school, my college, and hotels in different cities where we would attend corporate conferences.
So now, airfare schedules get into mix. Almost always, I don’t know where I even parked my car, and a huge snow storm has buried them. My car is not modern, it is a shifting blend of all the cars I had when I was in my twenties and thirties. But I do find my trusty 1965 Rambler American, which always starts and I get a real kick out of driving it again.
The key is to realize you are just dreaming, that this is all in the past, your brain is playing with you, and none of it means anything any more. That’s when I start laughing, and direct the dream where I can reminisce at my will.
Brit here. I was brought up on tea several times a day. Coffee was considered more of an adult drink. Perhaps the lower caffeine level you mention was a reason for that. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to give a lot of caffeine to children.
Nowadays I drink more coffee than tea, but that’s because it’s hard to get a decent cup of tea unless you make it yourself. I can drink bad coffee, but not bad tea.
For years I had a recurring dream where my teeth were crumbling, it was horrible. I haven’t had it since I had implants, although once I dreamed that my implant bridge had broken in half.
I work at night, but I appreciate your insomnia. I’ve gotten into a pattern of getting to sleep later and later in the day. I have taken Ambein for around three years and I thought it’s come to the end of its usefulness. Hope you get back into a good sleep routine soon.