October 31, 2007  

Halloween in a pill

So, I’ve been taking some medicine lately where one of the side effects is “changes in dreaming.” Hmm, I thought, that could be interesting. More vivid? Super-sexual? High-definition?

Alas, no, and this is why I am telling you about it on Halloween. What the pharamceutical company should actually write in the warning is: “This drug will give you nightmares. All night. Every night.” It has gotten to the point where lying in bed waiting for sleep is really a memory game trying to come up with all the real world fodder I predict my subconscious and this insidious drug will warp into a dark nocturnal narrative.

I’m not afraid of going to sleep. That I am dreaming so much each night means I am deeply asleep and pretty well-rested in the morning. But it does remind me of Wes Craven’s really genius turn in the original Nightmare on Elm Street in making falling asleep — something you cannot ultimately resist — the one thing you don’t want to do.

Happy Halloween!

One response to “Halloween in a pill”

  1. Brian says :

    As it happens, I am also taking a new medication that affects my dreaming, but my dreams *have* become intensely more realistic and alluring. I have come to think of them as being almost “golden” in a sense.
    Were you prone to nightmarish dreams previously? I don’t typically have “bad” dreams in the first place, and these recent dreams are similar to older ones, just more intense. I also remember them better when I wake up.