Dreams

Do you still dream when you sleep?

To sleep, perchance to dream…

I realized the other night when I awoke at my normal 3am, that I don’t know if I dream anymore. Well I am sure I do. We all dream. It is a part of REM sleep and needed to keep us sane. Well sane enough to function at least.

3am has been my go to wake up time since I hit menopause. Not sure why this is. Some nights I am able to fall back asleep by 5am for a few more hours, but alot of nights I lay there, and wait for sunup so I can start my day. It also seems that 3am is the go to hour for middle of the night wakefulness for women of a certain age. My friends all say we should just call each other or text at that hour since we are all awake. It would be nice to know if there is some special meaning in 3am, and if there is some feminine power that we are supposed to be able to harness at that time of the night.

Now, when dreaming infused my world, I used to feel that I was actually part of the dream. That I had some inklining, no matter how small, that in the recesses of my mind, my dreams were formed and they were masterpieces of creativity (of course). I used to know that when I woke my dream world refreshed my soul.

Now most assuredly, not all of my dreams were good dreams. Certainly, I had nightmares and the worry dreams, the weird dreams, and the fantastical dreams. I had frightening dreams, and dreams filled with longing.

But no more.

When I wake I feel an emptiness. I know something is terribly missing. I do not have the calm that I was used to, and I awake tired. (No, I do not have apnea. It is a characteristic of this disorder that you wake physically tired, but this is not a tired of the body so much as a tiredness of the soul.)

You see, I used to lay in bed at night and create stories for myself. This is what I would fall asleep to. Remember how your parents would read to you as a child, and you in turn read to your offspring? So I would lay in bed and dream stories. It was my way of lulling myself into a dream world.

And I liked my stories. I was always the heroine, of course. My stories centered around me either in a space opera, or in some fantastical cyberpunk historical setting. (The stories were always quite dramatic and extraordinarily ornate.)

But I can’t dream anymore. I can’t lay in bed and create fantasy. I think too much of reality. I read the news, and check my telegram accounts. I do scroll through Youtube shorts, but that algorithm does me no favors. I do like the videos of laughing babies and silly pets, but the rest leave alot to be desired. And no don’t tell me to put away all my electronics and read a paperback book. I haven’t read a book since October 7. I have tried. But even my favorite authors offer nothing to assuage my mind.

(I do save TV and streaming shows for when I am on the cardio machines. Have to keep my attention somehow when I am huffing and puffing away.)

Invariably it is midnight or later and I still can’t sleep. I turn over and try to create a story in my head. I begin to work on a world that is beautiful and full of harmony, but it comes crashing down.

So I take some OTC sleeping meds and finally fall asleep. But when I wake I don't feel as if I dreamt. There is still this hole in my heart, and it is a gaping part of my soul.

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