Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2025-01-29 10:05 pm
edenfalling) wrote2025-01-29 10:05 pm
Entry tags:
wherein Liz has a nightmare
Got my last tax document yesterday so today I filed my taxes. \o/
I also had an actual client despite the vicious snow squall that blew through the area from 5 to 6pm, so that was nice.
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And now for something completely unrelated to work!
I spent pretty much the entirety of last night sweaty and overheated, to the point where I took off my pajama pants and kept shoving my comforter half off my body. No idea what was going on there, but I suspect it was the cause of the deeply unpleasant nightmare I had.
The dream was loosely based on Stephen King's Pet Sematary and ~helpfully~ featured my own nuclear family in the starring roles. (Context: Pet Sematary is one of the few books that I deliberately set aside rather than finish, not because it was in any way bad -- it's very well written -- but because I could tell EXACTLY where the foreshadowing was leading and I decided I did not want to go there. I stand by this choice.)
I am a semi-lucid dreamer, which meant I was aware that I was dreaming, but I am not a fully lucid dreamer and was therefore unable to successfully derail the dream or force myself awake. Any minor alterations I managed just fed back into the narrative, which of course made the whole thing worse.
When I did finally wake up, I experienced what I am pretty sure was a type of night terror/sleep paralysis. I will swear to any god you like that I saw the translucent, ghostly form of Catherine Tate (yes really. no, I have no idea why) hovering over me and rippling like smoke in the air, and I knew that she had caused the dream, and if she touched me I would get sucked right back into it. And I couldn't move. Couldn't even blink.
In the back of my head part of me was calmly cataloging this, all "This is a night terror, you are hallucinating, ghosts aren't real, there is a perfectly rational scientific explanation for this experience," but that did sweet fuck-all to convince the irrational gibbering occupying the majority of my brain for that handful of seconds.
Anyway I did eventually manage to blink, and then blink again and sit up and wake my phone to create a bit of light. And then I spent about 45 minutes reading about ancient Mesopotamia in hopes that I could create enough of a mental/emotional gap that my brain wouldn't attempt to recreate the same dream when I went back to sleep.
This mostly worked -- a bloodthirsty reanimated cat did appear in my next round of dreams, but my family was not involved and the emotional weight was gone.
I devoutly hope the experience will not repeat itself tonight.
I also had an actual client despite the vicious snow squall that blew through the area from 5 to 6pm, so that was nice.
-----
And now for something completely unrelated to work!
I spent pretty much the entirety of last night sweaty and overheated, to the point where I took off my pajama pants and kept shoving my comforter half off my body. No idea what was going on there, but I suspect it was the cause of the deeply unpleasant nightmare I had.
The dream was loosely based on Stephen King's Pet Sematary and ~helpfully~ featured my own nuclear family in the starring roles. (Context: Pet Sematary is one of the few books that I deliberately set aside rather than finish, not because it was in any way bad -- it's very well written -- but because I could tell EXACTLY where the foreshadowing was leading and I decided I did not want to go there. I stand by this choice.)
I am a semi-lucid dreamer, which meant I was aware that I was dreaming, but I am not a fully lucid dreamer and was therefore unable to successfully derail the dream or force myself awake. Any minor alterations I managed just fed back into the narrative, which of course made the whole thing worse.
When I did finally wake up, I experienced what I am pretty sure was a type of night terror/sleep paralysis. I will swear to any god you like that I saw the translucent, ghostly form of Catherine Tate (yes really. no, I have no idea why) hovering over me and rippling like smoke in the air, and I knew that she had caused the dream, and if she touched me I would get sucked right back into it. And I couldn't move. Couldn't even blink.
In the back of my head part of me was calmly cataloging this, all "This is a night terror, you are hallucinating, ghosts aren't real, there is a perfectly rational scientific explanation for this experience," but that did sweet fuck-all to convince the irrational gibbering occupying the majority of my brain for that handful of seconds.
Anyway I did eventually manage to blink, and then blink again and sit up and wake my phone to create a bit of light. And then I spent about 45 minutes reading about ancient Mesopotamia in hopes that I could create enough of a mental/emotional gap that my brain wouldn't attempt to recreate the same dream when I went back to sleep.
This mostly worked -- a bloodthirsty reanimated cat did appear in my next round of dreams, but my family was not involved and the emotional weight was gone.
I devoutly hope the experience will not repeat itself tonight.
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