At least, that is how I feel right about now. I feel like I got run down by the sleep truck, and I have to tell you, the sensation is not entirely unpleasant.

Not entirely pleasant either. Right now, I am dizzy, dehydrated, and it feels like the walls are moving on me when I am not looking.

I am on to you, walls! As soon as I figure out how to look in all directions at the same time, you guys are going to be in a lot of trouble!

But I also feel more relaxed and mellow than I have lately. Finally, I got the deep refreshing sleep I have been craving and needing lately. I had been going through one of those periods where I had trouble sleeping at all (even with the Quetiapine) and when I did sleep, I awoke feeling much the same as when I went to sleep.

That is really fucking irritating.

And so I am glad the other shoe has fallen and that I am now catching up on that deep deep sleep.

And of course, with it comes hyper vivid dreaming. This time, I had another hospital dream, and luckily, it was the pleasant sort, although those have a disturbing element to them as well.

In this dream, I was feeling very spaced out (kinda like now, actually) and was just sort of wandering around random city streets, extremely disoriented. In this state, I wandered into a fairly large city hospital. Big enough that the various wards were quite large, and sort of worlds unto themselves, just like the departments in a large office building.

So there I was, wandering incoherently through a large hospital, when I stumbled into the psychiatric ward. From the point of view of my now waking mind, this seems inevitable. I have had a terrible fascination with psych wards and asylums (asyli?) for a long time.

Somehow, despite my incoherent state of mind, I managed to convey to someone there that I was not feeling at all well, and I was admitted to the ward. (Uh oh.)

And this is when things begin to get weird. For some reason, in order to get admitted fully, I had to go through this procedure where they had to use this odd instrument to scrape skin from my back quite painfully. Then they had to check my hair for fleas and lice and such. (Makes sense. I would imagine that some of the people who end up in that ward are coming straight from being homeless and wild. )

And then, for some reason, they had to sedate me. The nurse said something about “taking care of my fingernails”, which would make sense… if I was a nervous Doberman. But at the time I just accepted it as standard procedure for potentially dangerous nutcases.

After all, they don’t know I am not the dangerous kind of loony, and given that I am a big and potentially pretty scary looking guy, I can see them wanting to make sure I was quieted down before I went on some giant crazy person rampage like I was a biker in the cop shop in a cop movie.

In the real world, fully awake, I doubt I would be quite so trusting.

Anyhow, they stuck a needle in my thigh (hurt like a bitch, ow) and watched the room get all wobbly and out of focus before I conked out completely.

So there I was, falling asleep in a dream. That is downright trippy, man. So meta.

Some indeterminable time later, I “awoke” into the dream again. It took me a few seconds to remember where I was and how I got there, and I remember thinking “I guess my fingernails are all trimmed now.”

I remember laying there, relaxed in a nice dark room, for a little while before getting up. When I got up, I somehow (dream transition) ended up being told it was time to eat, and I was seated at a table with some other patients of the ward.

And I was so relaxed from my chemical nap that I had no problem just being pleasant and making friends with the other people at the table. In fact, I was quite happy overall. I felt great. At peace, comfortable, relaxed, and enthusiastic.

Although one fellow patient, a dark and glowering fellow, said “yeah, well life stinks!” and I nodded and said “For everybody!” and he sort of growled and said “Well OK, MY life stinks” and I said, rather primly, “Then make sure to say that next time!”, and I have no idea what came over me to be such a shit.

I mean, sure, that is how I feel. People make pronouncements about life, but the only life they know is their own, and they are really talking about their own lives. So they should be honest about it, and not pretend to have some kind of insight into Life itself.

But I would never be suck a dick about it. Perhaps a happier me would feel less inhibited about doing things like that. If so, eww. Something to guard for as I recover.

Anyhow, then he explained that his life sucked because he was prone to these…. somethings. He used some word I don’t know and don’t recall. But they made him make terrible noises like a combination of extremely loud stomach growling along with a kind of strangled deep moaning.

That is a pretty bad affliction. But at that point in the dream, I began to feel weak, and conked out again. I assume that, in dream logic, I was carried back to my room by orderlies.

Sorry for that, fellows.

So then I wake up back in my room like before, and I lay there thinking “I thought I would be in that other place this time. ” And by “other place”, I meant reality. My real, actual life.

Then I drifted off again, and when I awoke, I thought, at first, that I was back to reality. But that was before I actually opened my eyes and looked around and realized that this room was nothing like the room in the “other place”.

So I deliberately went back to sleep, determined to wake up in the right place again, and this time, I did. That is when I woke up for reals.

I was completely disoriented and probably did not even know my own name, but at least I was home. In fact, I remember thinking “It’s good to be home. It’s good to be home. It’s good to be home. ”

Pretty fucking messed up, overall. I do not like it when my dreams get all meta and super intense like that, so that they warp my sense of reality and leave me feeling shaken.

Although I have to admit, I felt quite good when I woke up. It is only now that I am disturbed by the whole thing. By the reality warping, and by having to face that the idea of being in a psych ward is actually extremely appealing to me in a sick sort of way,

Imagine, no obligations, no pressure, no more being responsible for oneself, no need to be an adult. I could just live and concentrate on getting better.

No wonder I felt so good when I woke up. It was my best/worst fantasy. A complete retreat from adult life. Just do what you are told and everything will be OK.

And you even have people paying attention to you!

This is clearly something I will have to bring up with my therapist on Thursday.

And that is why I am glad I wrote it all down here.