Someone else's dreams

"And so Iggy Pop started cutting himself on stage, and the blood ran down into the mud of the mosh pit and everyone started scooping it up to drink like a sacrament!" I'm one of those people who bores his close friends with stories about my dreams. I think my dreams are sometimes entertaining and sometimes help me to have insights into myself. I truly think that sometimes my subconscious works things out in dreams that I can't work out in real life. I've paid a lot of attention to my dreams over time and I think I know as much about dreams as anyone.

I've had dreams where I was sleeping and dreaming a different dream inside the dream. I've even done some semi-lucid dreaming, where you partially wake up inside the dream and start controlling what happens.

There are common events and locations in my dreams. There's the school dreams, of course, now largely unattached from any actual physical school I've attended. I used to dream the standard about starting a class but not being able to find the room until the end of the semester. I went semi-lucid in one of those and decided, to heck with it, I can just make it up next semester. Now I dream about graduation coming up and I've deferred so many failed classes that I'm not going to graduate.

Sometimes at school while I worry about graduating a big hippie gypsy carnival parade comes through. When that happens, the school starts to look medieval, like Mont St. Michel.

There's the big city street, usually my friend Susan from the big city accompanies me there. There's the restaurant, usually the restaurant where I worked through most of my teens. I go back there and they agree to let me work a shift as a busboy for old times' sake. I fall steadily behind and end up in disgrace.

There's the café by the beach above the pier. There's a walking pier not far from there, lined with shops. There's the backstreets of the town where the Mexican carnival is going on. There's the giant Chinatown mall, usually I go there after dark when it's mostly empty. There's the shops above that where I can never find that one Mexican restaurant again.

There's the downtown area where I can never find that one nightclub again. There's a different nightclub made of thick adobe painted very pale yellow where they serve dinner upstairs and have great music shows in the basement. There's the huge steep bridge, so steep that it terrifies me just to climb it, but it always works out fine.

For a long time I had a repeating dream where I was hitchhiking up the coast with some friends, but we got separated in the rain. I always ended up bedraggled, muddy, and wet, knocking on the door of this mansion to ask for some help. It's the Reagan's. Ron and Nancy would take me in and they were surprisingly kind. After dinner we'd sit in the living room looking out the giant pictures windows over the ocean while the storm got worse and worse until giant waves were crashing over the house. I had that dream many times during the eighties. It's my only really Freudian dream.

I even have theories about dreaming. I think that the reason dreams seem so, well, dreamlike is that your mind is like a bad animation artist. It just can't keep foreground and background in synch. You zoom your attention into something, bring it to the foreground, and tell yourself a little story about it.

Like with the restaurant dreams, I zoom in and watch myself clearing a table. I do ok, but my attention is fairly splintered. When I zoom back out, I have to recreate the background and I may not do it in proper synch with the time sense of the "close up". Or, I might draw the background entirely differently. I might put in a giraffe. Or move entirely to the jungle. Then, why am I clearing tables in the jungle? Why are things in absurd combinations?

Or you go from A to B to C, like gardening makes you think of water hose which makes you think of elephant. Then you compare A to C and think, "why is there an elephant in my gardent?"

I believe it's all because of the nature of paying attention to something in a dream.

All this is to explain why I'm so upset about last night's dreams. You understand by now: I take my dreams seriously. I know my dreams, I know the shape and flavor of them. And I know when I'm having someone else's dreams.

Last night I had a dream that had nothing at all to do with me. I was watching it like a movie. It involved a couple who shifted unsettling between being Asian and African. Sometimes they were Koreans in Singapore, sometimes they were from neighboring villages in Africa. They were at an airport, getting on a small prop plane. They argued about their sugar importing business. I sat in neighboring seats and listen.

This is not part of my dream world. I do not know these people.

It's probably the new psych medicine, the Buspar. I'll let it go for awhile, and see what I can learn about this new land. I like using the medications to manage my head, and it will probably settle out soon.

But it brings out the biggest fear I always have with psych medicines, the fear that I will no longer be myself. When do you cross the line? When do you become somebody else?

I'm the only me I've got.

I want candy

Fucking New Yorker magazine. I've grown to hate New Yorker magazine. When I was much younger I tried to read and enjoy it, although it never had anything to do with anyone so gauche as to live on the west coast. It seemed so sophisticated and intellectual, just like I wanted to be. Now I just associate it with shrinks' offices. I have never ever sat in a waiting room for a shrink that didn't have New Yorker magazine available, sometimes nothing else.

Even a long time ago when I was in the county hospital for psychological services, shall we say, not entirely under my own will, the New Yorker was there. I was in with the gangbangers and drug od's and some off the planet loonies. I was desperate for something to take my mind off my current hell and begged a nurse for something, anything to read. One of the nurses took pity on me and dug around until she found an old – you guessed it, New Yorker magazine. I doubt any of the crack heads had brought it in, maybe New Yorker magazine just grows like mushrooms whenever shrinks are around.

Then there are other rich-people magazines. One of my shrinks, the talking shrink, must have someone in her office who flies private planes. There are magazines for private pilots there. Someone else must build wooden boats, there's a book about wooden sailboats there. Do they really think that people coming in to talk about their problems really are interested in the joys of flying a private plane? Do you think it's calming for people who might be pretty fucked up to sit waiting in your lobby, trying not to be impatient or worried, to think about your expensive hobbies and wonder how much of your wooden sail boat you're making from the fees they're paying you?

Of course, there's Highlights magazine for kids. All doctors who treat kids in any way in this country have this one. It must come with the AMA fees. I used to love this when I was six or seven. I especially used to love Goofus and Gallant. If you never read Highlights, Goofus and Gallant were brief lessons in manners and good behavior offered up in a cartoon. Oh, I wanted so badly to be Gallant, so noble and upright. The grownups all just adored good Gallant. I always wanted the grownups to adore me.

Maybe that's part of my problem.

I have plenty of time to observe waiting rooms at the moment. I've got two shrinks. I've got a psychologist, Dr T, and a psychiatrist, Dr. H. A talking doctor and a pill doctor. There's almost a complete split now between the two types, psychologists can't prescribe (they're not full MDs) and so psychiatrists do nothing but.

I had my second visit with Dr H, the pill doctor two days ago. I like a lot about the ADD medication, but I'm jittery when I come down, my blood pressure is through the roof, and I have even more trouble getting to sleep at night.

Oh, and my libido has crashed almost totally. That's from the anti-depressants. Sex is certainly no less enjoyable, and I can, ahem, perform completely fine, but the urgency is gone. When I was a teenager, I'd jerk off anytime I could get a spare minute and a modicum of privacy. I'd have welcomed a little less compulsion about it then. Now, I'm out near the other end of the scale. I'd like my libido back please.

So the pill doctor suggested I try Buspar, which is anti-anxiety and sometimes counteracts the low libido from the anti-depressants. And, what the hell, we changed to a new thing for ADD, I've got Adderall for that now instead of Concerta. Maybe it leaves the system a little more quickly so I can sleep better.

Early reports are, the Buspar calms me down at night and actually helps a lot with the insomnia. It seems to even bring my blood pressure down a bit. I feel a little slowed down in the day, until I take my Adderall. The two together balance out pretty well. We'll see how it settles over time.

Lucky, lucky me. If this all works out, my moods and concentration and energy levels will be carefully engineered and tuned. I'll be able to be more myself, more positive, more effective. I'll be a happier person, a better employee, a better citizen even. Totally Gallant.

I'll be nothing at all like the people who try to reach their own personal balance using crack cocaine, pot, alcohol, or xanax smuggled from Mexico. No, not at all. Those people are out of control. Those people have problems. Those people are illegal. I'd freak out to find myself dependent on non-prescription medicine, I *do* freak out when I think I'm drinking too much. I'm afraid of turning into Goofus.

Me, I'm more legal than Rush Limbaugh. I'm all analyzed and prescribed, insurance covers it all. It's a whole different thing. Really.

pain

It was like I was watching the words come out of my mouth in a big word balloon like in a comic strip.

I'd been wrapping my hands for boxing class and Sifu said, "So, how you doing?".

"A little better each time," I replied. I have to keep reassuring him that I'm not going to have a heart attack in class. "I was hardly sore yesterday after class the day before. I was kind of disappointed."

Jay-zus! I can't believe it! I just told my boxing coach that he wasn't giving me enough pain!

Well, he rose to the challenge today. And I did too. We were practicing combinations with a partner, one wearing mitts and the other punching. I partnered up with this friendly farm boy, probably in his teens. Three rounds, combination after combination. I finally learned to go hard for awhile, then go easy and catch my breath instead of stopping all together. Then
15 second turns with your partner, one steadying a heavy bag while the other goes full out punching on it, then reverse. It seemed to last forever.

But I finally felt it today, that satisfying "whaaa!" when you put your whole self into smacking the hell out of those damned mitts or the bag. That's what I love about this sport, sometimes I reach way down and get this power and it all comes out in a smack on the mitt.

I'm gonna hurt tomorrow. I'm glad.

Juggling

Juggling these various pills is getting to be a pain. There's a sweet spot in the curve where I feel GREAT and my focus is terrific. The upswing can be jittery and the downslope usually just ok. The afterburn sucks, though. Supposed to be 6-7 hours peak benefit, allow 12 for it to get clear of my system. But I can take these suckers at 7 AM and at 11 PM I'm laying in bed listening to my heart pound, I can feel my pulse in my fingertips. By morning I'm usually ok, but often still kind of edgy. Don't know if that's back to "normal" and I just never realized how bad it was, or what.

Well, that and....

The very first rule of debugging anything (and I use the word debugging in its most generic sense) is: Only change one thing at a time. Otherwise who knows which change caused which effect?

So I'm breaking all the rules, experimenting with about 5 variables at once in my life. First, the new medication. Second, my wife and I are have started the South Beach Diet. In the first "induction week" I've lost about 7 pounds. It must be mostly water, I couldn't possibly burn that many extra calories, but still.

And I'm starting at the boxing gym. Killer workouts that I can only complete about 75%, twice a week. But I promised myself right here in this blog back in Feb or March that I'd do it, and I'm doing it, and I like it.

Not to mention all the stuff that's springing loose and drifting around my brain. And the new medication.

So things could get interesting for awhile.

drug update

Remember sitting in the eye doctor's chair? That big metal thing in front of your face, he'd switch between different lens combinations. "Which is better, this?" switch "or this? How about this, A" switch again "or this, B?"

I wish there was something like that for psych medications. "Which is better, this? or this?" Instead you've got to wait until one drug leaves the system, wonder about what the additive effect is, think about what else is going on in your life.

So, I'm up again, wide awake at 12:30 AM on a Sunday morning. I'm wondering what effect the ADD medication (it's called "concerta") has had on my sleeping pattern, if any. It was great at first, I'd be so tired by the end of the day I'd just conk right out. Then I found myself laying awake, pulse racing, wondering if this is aftermath of the drug. One risk of it is that it may raise your blood pressure. But it's supposed to be out of your system in 6 or 7 hours, 12 max, and this was happening even when it had been 14 or 16 hours since my pill.

So this weekend I'm experimenting with skipping my pill. I was kind of draggy all day and hit a real lull about 3:30 and napped for an hour and a half. Now I've been trying to get to sleep for the past few hours. The good news is, it feels the same as last night, racing pulse, etc. So maybe it's not a hangover from the pills.

Which is good, because I really do like the primary effect of the pills. I get so much done. My concentration is so much higher. Sometimes I get a little jittery, but I'm remembering today as I go without that I sometimes get a lot jittery just on nothing.

At least the sleeplessness is just annoying and not worrying me.

All in all I think I'm better with the pills. I think it's worth it. But could I see B again?

boxing

just sitting here after boxing, don't want to move. That was a great workout. The teacher also teaches other martial arts and goes by Sifu. I try not to think "Seafood". He cuts me slack as long as I'm pushing it as hard as I can. I think he's afraid I'm going to have a heart attack. I think he also thinks I'm a wuss, but he gives me credit I think for being in there trying to de-wuss myself.

Only 3 others in class tonite. I think most of the men in class are farm boys from the country. None of them a day over 30, I think. One young woman, cute as a button, like a little bird but tall and thin. Probably not 25. After class today was sparring (light contact) and I saw her go up against a couple of farm boys and definitely outclassed the one her size and weight, and got the attention of the other one who's got probably 40 pounds on her. She's one tough birdy.
During class, as we're working thru exercises I'm having to pace myself - go hard for a few minutes then either lighten up or stop completely and suck air. Even when I'm going hard, I'm getting solid but polite little smackies against the bag or the focus mitts, while all around me are BAM BAM BAM people pounding the stuffing out of their bags.

It's still not as intense as Muay Thai was though - was I out of my fucking mind trying to hang with those killers? The big diff is that there's no kicking, of course - so no pumping huge amounts of blood around as you power your legs around in big ol' kicks, and I can walk the next day, pretty much. But it's perfect for me now, I can actually stick with this and get somewhere, Muay Thai was like bashing my head on a brick wall. I'd go for a week or 3 and then be so exhausted I'd get sick and miss a few weeks. Then starting back was like starting over from square one. Here I think I can keep going, week by week.

Creep

Ok, picture me doing my best Richard Nixon, jowls flapping, chin tucked down to my chest, shoulders hunched up, both hands in a V for Victory. And in my best jowly Nixon voice I say, "I am not a creep." Nobody's fooled.

That’s how I feel sometimes around women. Denying the essential creep-dom that comes along with being a man. My mom was afraid of men so she really tried to raise me to be asexual. She used to be fond of saying, "I knew that at some point you'd grow up to be bigger than me, so I trained you from day one to never hurt a woman." So I've got this weird overstated chivalry, women are fragile flowers who must always be taken care of, and they're scary monsters I could never understand, and they're sexy as hell.

I had my first real date at age 20. I didn't have sex until I was almost 23. I married the first woman who had sex with me, we've been together 25 years.

Oddly, my best friends are always women. I'm more like most women than I am like most men. I am not macho, never have been, never wanted to be. I've never been a jock. I've never enjoyed just thumping on my friends for fun. I've never enjoyed breaking things. I've never ever slagged on women in general. I like to cuddle. I talk about feelings.

I just have to get through the creep barrier, then it's all good.

Because I really think I do sometimes come across as creepy when I first meet a woman, especially if I'm attracted to her or find her interesting. I have one very good friend now who I couldn't even look at for the first six months I knew her because I was afraid I would do something stupid. She's a very beautiful woman. It was particularly awkward because I was her boss. She'd come in my office to talk about her job and I'd look at my desk, look at the walls, anywhere but look at her. How did we get to be such good friends? It's a mystery.

You start off with eye contact, but that's pretty scary because sometimes you can see right inside, or she can see right inside you. Then you're hosed. So you look down OH SHIT! I JUST LOOKED AT HER TITS! DID SHE CATCH ME? Think I got away with that one. Nice tits, though.

Much safer to play with the things on your desk or stare up into the corner of your office like you're searching for bats.

I even went through a phase where I fought a compulsion to look at every woman's breasts. I've never told anyone this story. Every woman, whether they were sexually attractive to me or not, I had to try to sneak a peek at her hooters. My boss at the time was a woman, a great individual for whom I have tons of respect. Also, one of the few women on the planet who I never found sexually attractive. No how, no way. I shudder to think. Still, I had to struggle to keep my eyes off her boobs. It scared me. A lot.

One time I was in a meeting with a very attractive woman and the compulsion struck. I said to myself, ok, when you get a chance, take a good look and be done with it. Maybe you can just fulfill the compulsion and it will go away long enough to finish this meeting. I took a nice long admiring look and I got busted. I never would have guessed that someone could pack so much scorn, disgust, and anger into one withering look.

I could never bear to meet with her again. It's a coincidence that I moved to a different company shortly after that. But maybe not entirely a coincidence.

Eventually the compulsion went away, but it could come back. So I'm very cautious. Keep your eyes where they belong. Don't look, don't touch, and don't let on when you want to.

So when I do meet a woman who I want to be friends with I get so nervous. I want to say, "Here's my credentials, lots of women friends, see, look, here's pictures of my kids. I'm not a creep, really and truly."

What could be creepier?