I was gonna give this a snappy title but I'm not Fall Out Boy soo... this is called Nightmares I guess

      Christmas Eve was gonna be bad for me mentally- I knew this.  I won't go into lengthy details here. Trauma & emotional abuse are weird like that- it becomes routine & not specific. So drudging that past up now haphazardly feels like writing a paper underwater with slight amnesia. It's all smudgy. I don't remember.  I  don't know what any of it means.
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For the past few weeks I been struggling to fall asleep and when I do nightmares  wake me with a racing heart and overwhelming anxiety fall upon me after 4 hours.  My wife is usually asleep beside me yin to my yang, her feet to my head.  The house is so quiet, I am overalert for danger whether it be spirit or intruder I do not know but in the dark the anxiety has the loudest voice. 

Each dream is usually different. I struggle to find the common threads besides waking from most with anxiety in my chest. They have fully formed and complicated narratives- the kind I could never write in my waking life. Upon consciousness, the details fall like loose screws from my memory. 

When my grandmother hired a psychic to her living room last year , she told me to pay attention to my dreams. 

At the time, she imparted this wisdom, my dreaming was coming back. I was getting vivid ones again but not often and vague. As I have worked on becoming more present in my body, the dreams have amped up. There is a flood of messages from my subconscious but I do not have the language to sift through and interpret them.

I often google dream meaning but many symbols can mean so many different things according to different sources it is frustrating for me to ascertain which was right for mine. Take for example one dream I had involving my investigating the living room in the early am while wifey slept and my front door opening slowly ominously by itself until I slammed it shut to lock it. According to a google search for meaning “If you dream about an open door and then it slams shut, you may have missed an opportunity which is no longer available. It could also mean you had perceived a problem forming, but that it has now disappeared. It could signify you had never addressed the problem, but had rather ignored it instead.” (source Do you Dream about Doors? | Blog | Slide or Foldslideorfold.co.uk ).  Like UMM OK.

I used to have nightmares are a kid too. I don't remember much because I dissociated so often  I can barely remember who I was. One involved a vampire in a wood and me running back to my childhood home scared. The other an apple orchid. I have been writing a memoir for the past 2ish years to piece my story together for myself. There’s so many missing fogs. Some so well dissipated they don't fit into any larger things I remember. Until one day I write about scarves in a room full of people and somehow within 15 mins I have veered completely off any map and remember  a rare moment of my father being kind or some  event from my preteenhood. 

My mom tells me when I ate chocolate too late, I would kick the walls in my sleep, knocking down framed Disney posters next to my top bunked slumber. I remember frequently the posters on the floor the next day, stuffed animals that were beside me in the middle of the room. 

Sleep at some point became an escape for me as I couldn't deal with my reality. 

But now I am afraid to sleep for fear of what will pop me awake this time and how long will I lay in bed ears perked and eyes wide like a deer in traffic listening for any sign of danger at 3 am.  This fear used to live in my chest all the time and follow me around. It was heavy  but I didn't know that then.  Now I feel the full weight but less often. I can't give you the exact date it started to creep off of me and live outside me waiting.. It's all smudgy. I don't remember.  I  don't know what any of it means.