Nightmares

Don't let the nightmares break you...

    💀Warning... this post might be a little spooky... and inappropriate for younger readers.💀

    Alright, so, tomorrow marks 3 weeks of official sobriety (go me!).

    During the day 🌞, I'm feeling great, for the most part. There are of course bad days here and there but in general, my diet, energy levels, and motivation are all starting to improve. At night 🌜, however, I embark on my own little personal tour of Hell 👿. For the record, I don't believe in such a place, but if I had to imagine what it was like... well, my dreams give me a pretty good idea.

    Before I get into this, I just want to make it clear that I am not writing this post to scare you (although it might). I am not writing this to deter you from getting sober. I'm not even 100% sure what my intentions are with this one... I guess maybe I just want to drive home the point that quitting weed can actually be really fucking intense, and I that I feel like said aspect is missing in a lot of ways from the conversation about marijuana.

   According to a website I scoured at 3 am the other night, nightmares are often a part of quitting, especially for those who have been long time, heavy smokers (And I'd say I was an extremely heavy smoker):

"Is there a connection between nightmares, dreams and weed abstinence? According to research, there appears to be a connection attributed to neurobiological findings emerging from the discovery of the brain’s cannabinoid receptor system. Cannabis Withdrawal Syndrome (CWS) now included in the DSM-5, is a clinically recognized syndrome comprised of a constellation of symptoms affecting heavy pot smokers who quit weed. Criteria for diagnosing CWS include:

Irritability/anger

Aggression

Lack of appetite

Anxiety/nervousness

Depression

Insomnia

👹Disturbing dreams (these can be true nightmares or merely vivid dreams)👹

Physical signs of cannabis withdrawal syndrome include stomach pain, night sweats, chills, low-grade fever, and shakiness. Researchers aren’t sure if intense dreaming after quitting weed is due to the symptoms themselves, disruption of neurotransmitter release within the brain’s sleep center or a combination of both."

    To be clear, I've always had a problem with nightmares. Even when everything in my life is just peachy 🍑, I still tend to have them pretty frequently. However, certain things seem to make them much more vivid and horrifying. A lot of prescription drugs 💊 seem to have this effect on me, and now, I've found that getting clean has that same effect.

    The rest of this post is going to consist of two nightmares that I had over the last two nights. I started keeping a dream journal a few nights ago, because A) I know my brain is currently tasked with re-wiring itself after close to twenty years of substance abuse, and I thought that writing my dreams down may help it to understand and streamline the process, and B) Hopefully I'll get a good song or something out of it.

    The following is almost exactly what I wrote down in my journal, other than the fact that the names of the people involved have been changed for anonymity. If you know me well enough, you can probably figure out who's who, and that's ok. Just please be respectful of people's privacy. Sorry if it's a bit confusing at times; I'm going to try to write it here almost word for word, just as I did right after waking up in a bit of a haze. There may be a few notes strewn about to give you guys a better sense of things. The second one is actually somewhat tame, compared to a lot of the others I've had recently, but still had an air of discomfort and anxiety throughout. Here we go... buckle up.

    

    

    5/24/21 (Woke at about 12:41 AM, after falling asleep around 10:30/11:00 PM)

    Walking home? Definitely lost. Keep finding myself on rooftops somehow that lead to nowhere.

    Some girl's dog pukes on my foot (I thought I was wearing my Docs, when I looked down I was wearing my green adidas sandals which I hardly ever use) *Note: This struck me as very odd, after thinking about it. I literally never wear sandals and I haven't even looked at those things in like 6 months. Weird. 

    She felt really bad, she said she "liked metal and stuff too". Took me down to this nice basement/bathroom with some other girls who also seemed nice.

    We were talking and laughing a lot while I cleaned my foot, shit was really stuck and wasn't coming off.

    After a bit, a group of guys came down, and one of them (the "boss", as I perceived him) said, "Ok, I think we need to have some guy time..." in a very menacing and evil voice that immediately sent chills up my spine.

    Girls looked kind of scared and left (not sure if they were in on it or just trying to be nice).

    After that, it got pretty uncomfortable/scary.

    Girls leave, guys start harassing me.

    Several of them (the guys I mean, 10 or so).

    Don't remember exactly what they were saying, but they were touching me and making fun of me to an extreme. At one point, boss starts staring at me unblinkingly, playing some weird music on his phone, and touching himself.

    I eventually was able to leave, but on my way out, a skateboarder gang surrounds me and also begins to harass me.

    Seemed to be led by a small, blonde girl (*I don't think she was one of the girls from before). She was very predatory in nature.

    All I remember is them chasing me and saying things like, "Come back, little genofly!!" and, "You're just a little genofly, like us." They were laughing maniacally and I felt like an animal being hunted.

    Suddenly could not find an exit, as every way out was blocked by some sort of fence that looked like it led to a restricted factory-type area.

    Dream ends with skateboarder gang getting more aggressive and closing in, almost catching me.

    *I was obviously curious as to what the heck a "genofly" might be. It does not appear to have any particular meaning, although a quick search revealed there are several social media profiles with that name. Anyone???

    5/25/21 (Woke at 3:50 AM, after falling asleep for the second time around 1 AM)

    I swear I've had this dream before. Possibly right after I moved back to CO. Obviously some things were different, as there were people and events being portrayed that were not a part of my life four years ago. But I swear I've had a very similar dream before, and I even say so in the dream itself.

    Van (*a good friend of mine) and I are driving somewhere (in my Mom's car? The white SUV?) and we somehow drive the car into this building called, "The Palace."

    Before we left for The Palace, we were somewhere hanging out, at like a house I think (not sure who's or any of that).

    We somehow set alarms off (*probably because we drove a freaking car into a building, go figure) and when we try to leave, security tells us we need to "go down to the security desk".

    Somehow none of that seems to matter though, and we start finding different members of his family inside. 

    First, his grandma, then his little sister Ginny and his step brother, Lucas, finally his step dad Alfred and his oldest sister, Gianna. For the most part, it's actually kind of fun for a while, although his grandma wasn't really his grandma (*as in, it didn't look like his grandma at all) and she keeps like falling over and seems confused and disoriented. For some reason, this is funny to us.

    The Palace is like a fancy hotel/bar/possibly casino? Very high ceilings and lots of gold and white décor. Bars and seating areas all over the place.

    After the grandma thing, we run into Ginny and Lucas, and we're talking and laughing with the pair and dancing with Ginny. 

    We part ways with those two and start exploring The Palace, but I realize I left my phone somewhere. We turn around to go find it and I actually said, "I swear this has happened before. I know where my phone is because this has happened before", as if I was experiencing deja vu in the dream, but still didn't know it was a dream.

    We go back to get the phone, and on the way I see Lizzy (*my most recent ex-girlfriend) at a corner of a bar with some guy (never see his face and don't recognize him). At first, she looks normal, and we make eye contact. I hear her say something like "And wow, there's my ex".

    As I move around this pillar thing that she's sitting behind, however, she changes completely. Her hair looks like a huge, clown afro type dew (blackish brown, with some red dye mixed in?). She's distressed, drunk, etc.

    She looks like she's having a bad time with this guy and I lean in and say, "Lizzy, if you ever need a friend, I'm here."

    And then suddenly we're outside for a moment, just her and I, on the sidewalk near the parking lot, and she says something like, "Oh yeah, you're there for me" in a sarcastic tone. "You just unfriended me..." (*I did recently unfriend her on Facebook) She is really drunk and really upset.

    Things get fuzzy there, but somehow I end up with a bunch of her jewelry (punk/goth style chains and necklaces and the like) and Van and I are back inside The Palace, sitting at a table with Alfred and Gianna having a nice conversation.

    All of a sudden, I somehow accidentally get one of the clasps from Lizzy's chains stuck on my front tooth. I take it off to find more are now stuck. I get a little panicky, start trying to pull them off, meanwhile everyone at the table is kind of shocked and horrified, asking me if I need help.

    I wake up.

    Overall, not particularly scary, per se (*compared to my dream standards, I guess), until the last bit. Most of the time, Van and I are having fun, with moments of panic and fear punctuated throughout. I think I remember The Palace being in a mountainy, woodland area (*a lot of my really intense dreams seem to be in a similar setting).

    So there you have it, folks. I hope I didn't fill your tanks with too much nightmare fuel, and I hope you're not scared to be in the same room with me after reading this 😅. I have always found dreams to be absolutely fascinating, scary or not. After re-reading and typing these out for the blog, I've made a lot of connections to recent events in my life that were clearly being portrayed in dramatic fashion throughout these adventures.

    Thanks for toughing it out if you made it this far, and I hope at the very least, this post can serve as a deterrent for people who smoke as much pot as I did. Like I said, I'm almost three weeks in, and still, the unusually vivid dreams are still going strong. I love you all, and for now, I'm happy to be awake...💜💜💜

https://fherehab.com/learning/nightmares-while-quitting-weed (*That website I was surfing, they have some great info about quitting marijuana)