Since I am going on on the topic of dreams, I will note that last night, the night of January 16, I had my recurring nightmare about my teeth falling out. (In short; I feel that my teeth are loose in my gums... they begin falling out one by one, to my horror. I try to put them back in or keep them from falling out, to no avail.) Except this time, I was aware that I was having a recurring dream, so I pinched myself.. in the dream. Having not "waken up" (in the dream), I was then thoroughly convinced that it was real. I also was confused, since I'd seen the dentist recently and was quite sure my teeth hadn't been that bad, and felt remorse for not having better followed his advice. I also thought he'd be quite pissed when I went to him to have my teeth put back in. This is when I woke up.

("Brush more often or your gums will recede," says my Dentist. Note that I've been having this dream since before I saw the dentist. Whether this means my gums have been trying to tell me something, or I subconsciously processed concerns I had over whether I was brushing enough, none can say. For example, if you dream about having cancer, does that mean you have cancer, or that you're worried about it?)

I have had this dream at least three times before, though I Don't Remember When.

I record this dream for the purpose of proving that it is indeed a recurring dream. Should I have it again, I will record it again. That way instead of saying "I Remember I've Had It Before But Don't Remember When," when at parties I brag about how prescient or creepy my dreams are, I shall have it explicitly on record.

*(like those retarded feelings of deja-vu where you aren't sure whether you're actually repeating an experience, or are just being mindfucked)

Needing pscyhological analysis

Is it normal to have nightmares when you're awake? Because I just did, and I don't smoke pot.

When I was eight, I was sick once, and had a variety of fevered nightmares. What distinguished them from other nightmares is a) their intensity, b) that the fear was not a fear of the situation dreamt about, but a completely irrational fear, and c) that the feeling induced did not fade after waking.

My dad tried to reassure me then saying, "Yes, when I was little and had a fever, I dreamt about angry people chasing me."

However... my fever dreams were different from my dad's sort of dream (I will explain shortly).

Tonight, I had one again, but I a) don't have a fever, b) I'm an adult, c) I was awake d) I was fully aware of what was going on. That's what worries me

I am going to, to the best of my abilities, describe my dreams, so that I can correctly be diagnosed.

When I was 8 with the fever:

The dream: For some reason, I am picking up sticks which are scattered about the floor in my parents' bedroom. As I pick them up, there are progressively more and more sticks on the ground, that appear faster and faster, faster than I can pick them up. I begin to panic because I can't pick up the sticks fast enough, I try to pick them up faster, but the sticks begin spinning around me, faster and faster, soon I am surrounded by a hurricane of sticks that goes faster and faster, and I can't pick them up, and they're spinning around me and I can't pick them up.

(This is what I mean by "the fear is not a fear of the situation dreamt about, but an irrational fear." Because seriously... picking up sticks?? Oh, terrifying!!!)

Second dream: I go into the bathroom. There is a robot there, vaguely resembling a person. Now normally, I like robots, they're pretty cool. But in this case, the sight of the robot filled me with terror. It begins spinning or something, its body, its parts, all whirling, moving, rotating at higher and higher speeds, and this whole time it was just staring at me, and I'd never been more terrified in my life.

Third dream: I am on the stairs in my house. My aunt, who I normally adore, is there as a disembodied staring head. She is talking to me, just chatting, but the words take on a sinister rhythmic chanting, and she chants faster and faster and faster and the words make no sense, and I am with her, helpless and paralyzed.

Not a dream: I wake up, screaming to my parents about these nightmares. They comfort me, listening attentively, expecting to hear all the usual childrens' nightmares of monsters and bogeymen. I try to explain it to them but they don't really understand what's so scary about a bunch of sticks, a robot, and my aunt. I'm eight, so the only thing I can get across is, "Going very fast, can't stop, can't stop." My parents notice that my heart is beating dangerously fast, so they try to get me to calm down. I do, but over the next two days, I can't stand to be alone, or that pounding, racing fear comes back to me for absolutely no reason. My parents say, "Oh, your heart was beating very fast, that must be causing all those dreams about things quickening. So you should keep your heart rate down."

The same day, I'm playing the piano, you know, the scales, something simple to relax my mind. As I play, my fingers begin going faster and faster, and I begin to panic because the faster I go, the more I mess up the notes, and something compels me to play faster and faster and faster but my fingers can't keep up, and it's just like the dream, but with no sticks, and I start to panic and my heart hammers. I realize this though, and what my parents told me about keeping my heart rate down. Unlike the dream, I am awake, and I am in control. I count to ten slowly, in calm, measured intervals. I force my fingers to play the scales slowly and deliberately, at a controlled rate, and soon, my heart rate falls, and I'm calm again. My parents have no idea that anything is wrong.

I'm hesitant about going to bed again that night, but I hold in my head visions of butterflies frolicking in a meadow as the sun sets. I count to ten calmly. I have no nightmares of the sort that night, or for the next twelve years.

Tonight: I lying in bed. I close my eyes, trying to fall asleep. Suddenly, that feeling of quickening panic draws over me (no sticks, robots, aunts, pianos, or any scene, just the feeling) and I open my eyes immediately, recognizing it at once. I'm puzzled. I haven't experienced this type of panic since childhood, I don't have a fever, and unlike that time, I didn't have a nightmare to accompany it, just the sensation. I brush it off and try to go to bed again- I'm not a frightened eight year old, there are no stick hurricanes and spinning robots for God's sake. Again, it happens, but my mind pulls away, the mental equivalent of flares and warning signs and a hand on a hot stove. My eyes snap open. After I cease to be frightened, I'm a bit annoyed at myself. Seriously, what is it that's causing that effect? This time, I'm going to close my eyes and keep them closed, even if I begin panicking, even if the panic rises, because I'm a goddamned grown-up, I can deal with it, and I want to know what's going on, and I can't know what's going on if I don't ride it out. I close my eyes, drifting towards sleep, but with part of my mind awake and observant. I am beginning to sleep, my sensations, my consciousness fading into oblivion. This is usually a pleasant sensation, but this time, it's different - I feel the sensory darkness creeping over my limbs, I feel acutely aware of my unseeing eyes staring into the vast unshaped chaos that is sleep, and I'm frightened, and fighting it, fighting for wakefulness, and there I am again, awake. WTF, goes my brain.. I sleep 365 days of the year, why is it different today? I try to sleep again, willfully ignoring the Unshaped Oblivion, forbidding myself from conceptualizing it as separate entity. This works for a little while, but the more you think about not thinking about it, the more you think about it. A chanting rushes through my head, but a soundless chanting without words, rhythmic, all-consuming (I can hardly think about anything else). It's not really a sound, though it can only be described as such, in the same way that pain is not really fire, love is not really warmth, knowledge is not really light, and death is not really darkness- these are things so far beyond their linguistic and sensory metaphors as to be impossible to truly describe. It's the "sound" of my heart beating, my brain pulsing, the blood surging through my veins, the sound of sheer chaos and terror and oblivion and wildness without end, this all-consuming roar that goes faster and faster and faster... by now I am quite awake. And it will not stop. I put my hand to my chest, but don't feel any difference in heart rate. If it is not my heart that is the physiological cause of this panic, what is it?

I have had my share of nightmares, but the fear in those comes from something. For example, last night I dreamed I was being chased by a demonic T-Rex. I was frightened of the T-Rex of course, but when I woke up I realized I wasn't being chased by a T-Rex in reality, and was immediately unafraid. Obviously, it was the T-Rex causing the fear. But this? There is no T-Rex, or any other monster.. it is almost as if it is the fear that is causing the fear.

Tell me what I fear, so that I may be unafraid.