Dreams of terror visit me at night

I have been having nightmares lately. A lot. They don't involve falling or witches or big bears chasing me. They involve unplanned pregnancy and hard core drug addiction.

Why am I telling you this? Just to share my dream with you? A little, but I wouldn't do that to you without reason. Generally, I really don't like hearing about people's dreams (unless I really really like you...then I'll listen to you talk about every dream...and gayboy sexcapade...you ever had), so I try not to inflict this information on others. Sometimes I have enough trouble paying close attention to your real life, now I have to listen to your fictional life too? No. (grade A info from the source: being quiet does not always = being a good listener). But for real, no, I will listen to your dreams if you want to share them with me. Promise. Your words are important.

OK, back to me. I am sharing this with you, because these dreams cause such an enormous amount of anxiety while they are occurring! And they always happen right at the tail end of my slumber, so my prefrontal cortex (AKA, "the seat of rational thought and critical reasoning"-- thank you Natalie Angier.) is starting to wake up and be rational and tell me, "no! this isn't real!" but PC can't function enough to tell me WHY it's not real, so I freak. A lot.

The theme in both of these dreams is clear: anxiety over losing control. In both cases a foreign substance (or person...though let's not get into that debate) is claiming control over my body, and for whatever reason I am unable to stop it. In REM, I always seem to not realize I'm with child until my third trimester. And with the drugs, I always go in thinking, “I will certainly have the willpower to not become addicted to this heroin that I am shooting up my arm.”

Wrong. I've learned my lesson. I did get addicted. And I'm learning it repeatedly. Real-life simulation.

What if you could give impressionable adolescents pills to induce these dreams? I'm really not pro the WAR ON DRUGS approach to middle school health education (b/c I had an unfortunate experience where I truly bought every single word they told me and let it negatively impact my late adolescent social life), but if I were pro WAR ON DRUGS, I wonder if that would be an effective means of preventing the kiddies from engaging in BAD THINGS. Would it be ethical to enforce a mental experience like that? Hmmm...

Anyway, these are my current nightmares. They'll probably continue. And that's ok. It's kinda nice seeing myself doing the badass things that I don't do in real life. But ya never know. And now I am totally kenahara-ing myself.

Ahhhh, will you still be my friend when I'm an unfit mother addicted to intravenous drugs? I promise I'll listen to your dreams! K, bye.