Intense Dreaming

Over much of the last year, and particularly in the months running up to her exams, my girlfriend had been plagued by "intense" dreams. She rarely remembers all of the details, but had been waking up as exhausted as she was the night before, and often more stressed than the night before. The likeliest cause was the combination of her medication and the heightened stress levels she has been experiencing over the last year or two. She's recently spoken with her GP about the constant tiredness she has been experiencing, and that will now be investigated with a view to determining whether it's a matter of adjusting her medication, or if there's an underlying medical condition which has yet to be diagnosed.

I'd not had any particularly interesting dreams until Friday night, hence the lack of blogging about them, but I had a doozy last night, and it seemed similar to the kinds of intense dreams my girlfriend has had.

Essentially, I woke up within the dream to find myself strapped to some kind of hospital bed. The straps were being released and was told I was 'ready to go', but had no recollection of how I got there in the first place. As I met up with my girlfriend and various family members after leaving the hospital, it slowly transpired that I'd has some kind of breakdown at least a year before. I had been deposited at this hospital by concerned family members, who had described something very wrong with me, and begged one of the doctors to "do something about it". The doctor had confidently assured them that she could "fix me", and my release into my girlfriend's care was the final part of the process.

I had no recollection of any 'therapy', nor the events that had led to my incarceration in the hospital. No-one would tell me anything specific about what had happened - perhaps for fear of undoing the doctor's therapy. Gradually, I was overcome by a creeping fear that some necessary part of me - something that either made me who I am, or that allowed me to do my job effectively - had been taken away, yet I couldn't identify what. I didn't feel incomplete, except that I had at least a year's worth of amnesia, and that alone was enough to start me panicking about returning to 'real life' and work. Much of the time, I was wondering "what if I can't do my job anymore?" and picturing common office situations, trying to remember how I'd have reacted 'before' and figure out how I might react 'now', which just exacerbated the panic.

Waking up 'properly' was a bit weird.