Regulate after NIGHT FIVE

1.9.19

You remember dreams only if you wake up during the night, so they can go from short-term to long-term memory. The same dreams are spooling out when you’re sleeping straight through; you just don’t remember them.

So I know that I really WAS tossing and turning all night last night.

(So often we assume we had a bad night’s sleep when in reality we were just unconscious during most of it.)

Because I had some weird and vivid dreams.

Melatonin is in the right cycle; I get sleepy as evening wears on. In fact, I can’t wait for bedtime because I’m worn out from the day and longing to sleep. (Although – last night, I did get caught up in the current book, which is Martin Cruz Smith’s Polar Star, in which ace Moscow police detective Arkady Renko is working on a fish filet factory ship in the North Sea, which is every bit as grim as you might imagine, and STILL he’s smarter than everyone else around him; love me some Arkady, and Polar Star is the best of a great bunch.)

Where was I?

Right – I bid Arkady a reluctant good night and snapped off my light at a little after 11.

Then I was up at 1:30.

And 3:30.

And 4:15. Not ENOUGH melatonin to keep me under.

At least the dreams were interesting. There was one connected dream that stretched across several grumpy roll over/go pee/sit up/punch the pillow episodes. In it, my sister Twig was waiting in my car while I ran into our childhood Safeway for something.

But in the Safeway were all these friends, and I got to gabbing. My good pal Rob Lowe (his presence in my dream obviously a product of too many Brat Pack movies in my youth, not to mention Parks and Rec, mmmm) had just invited me to assess how soft his new necktie was – isn’t that silky? Why, yes, Rob, it really is – when I saw Twig outside.

I found her and she handed me my car keys. I have a kidney infection, she said, and it’s really, really bad. She stomped off to walk home. I can drive you, I called plaintively, but she wouldn’t hear me.

(I actually think I might have a kidney infection; I’m going to the doc to investigate on Friday. That’s neither here nor there; I just think these ties to reality help to ground a dream.)

So then I couldn’t find my car. I stood in the rainy dark night as Rob and my other friends bid me a cheerful farewell. No car in the parking lot. Hah – I have a (dream-based) GPS tracker on my car; I’ll use that. Off I walked, down rainy country roads, following the beep of my car.

Look – there it is. Twig has disguised it as a huge, Transformers-like tow truck parked on the more-or-less lawn of some disreputable and very dark home. No, wait – it’s not the tow truck; my car is in the bed of the pick-up (this tow truck had a pick-up bed with two silver cars in it; mine was hidden behind the other) (and it was my last car, not the Countess). Clearly this was going to have to wait until tomorrow.

Never mind – I’ll go to my OTHER car. (I don’t have another car.) (Well, I do, but it’s not a green, impossibly small Fiat with a bizarre sunroof composed of square glass tiles that slid against each other to open.) Here it is, parked down the street. Oh, Lord, I’ve left the strange sunroof open and it’s raining; now my little car is going to smell. As I was standing on the sidewalk next to my little car, a large pick-up truck pulled off the road and onto the sidewalk; as it slowed to stop, it struck me a glancing blow on the head with its massive chrome grill.

I fell back into the wet leaves. I’m fine, I called – I can already tell I’m fine. (I might be wrong, I thought – but I didn’t want to worry the collection of teenagers now staring at me anxiously from the truck.) Two boys hopped out. They helped me up. You forgive us, don’t you? Yes, of course – now get out of here before I find out there’s something wrong and I change my mind about forgiving you.

Then I woke up.

Bizarre. Very vivid.

By the time it got to be 7:40 (my alarm was set for 8), I was exhausted from trying to sleep and gave up and admitted I was awake.

So does that mean the cortisol was doing its job waking me up? Or was the melatonin simply out of whack? I have no idea. I suspect I’m going to be tired today – and my To Do list just isn’t that long. I’m going to have to find ways to avoid napping. Arkady, I’m counting on you.

Rob Lowe. Cute all his damned life. And – nice tie.