Sleep, interrupted

I am a professional insomniac. Sleep is not something that has ever come easily to me until about 5 years ago when I first started doing yoga. I finally learned how to relax (a little) and shut my brain down long enough to get to sleep.

Of course, a few years after this became normal, I had a kid and messed it all up. But the upside to THAT is that I can combat-nap with the best of them. No longer does it take me 30 minutes of controlled breathing to shut down and sleep. Now? Head>pillow>ZZZZZZZ. It’s nice.

The downside is that now my dreams are crazy-vivid. Before, my dreams had the quality of an old film: murky, flickering, fragile. Now? IMAX! The result is that instead of waking up and thinking, “that was an interesting dream…” Now I wake up going “AIEEEE!”

See, on the one hand, I know that dreams are just the brain’s way of doing a data-dump and getting rid of some of the excess goop that’s floating around in there.

On the other hand, the details of said excess goop are such that I wake up wonder just where the hell THAT came from. Things, people, places I haven’t thought of in years show up as characters in the dream. I can see colors, smell things, and hear voices as clear as if they were right there in the room with me.

And this is disturbing my sleep.

These details are also the reason why I can’t just see my dreams as a way for my brain to take out the trash, so to speak. I’d like to, because that would make sense, but… I can’t. There has to be meaning there, right? THERE HAS TO BE MEANING IN THESE DREAMS OR I WILL GO INSANE.

AGAIN.

I’d love to recount the dream here and all that it means to me, but this is Teh Intarwebses, after all, and you never know who’s reading. So rather than go into gross, chick-lit detail, I’d rather just wonder what other people think.

Dreams: meaningless recycling center for the brain or not?