Traveling INFJ

Tag: Stress Relief

  • A Quiet Nightmare

    A Quiet Nightmare

    “I just want to sleep without dreams.”

    Everyone else in my house is relieved because they’ve waited for this moment all day. It’s time to go to bed. The dogs each receive a honey and banana cookie at bedtime. It’s the dog version of a mint on the pillow. They race ahead of us and get comfortable in their respective sleeping areas, excitedly anticipating their treat. My husband has worked an extra long day and has been waking up in the middle of the night with muscle spasms, so he’s more tired than usual. He can usually fall asleep within minutes of lying down, though. He’s so lucky.

    After we ate dinner, my Dad took himself to his room. He asked to go to the bank soon, but I didn’t want to take him there alone. I haven’t been to this specific bank location yet and don’t enjoy driving him places. I have a phobia of driving, and the anxiety is worse when I have passengers. Ironically, my Dad taught me how to drive back in the day. I learned how to drive in a late 90’s Toyota 4Runner with a manual transmission. He took me up Divisadero Street in San Francisco to teach me how to not roll backwards at stop signs, and that must have scarred me for life. Anyway, I still don’t want to take him to the bank.

    I’m the only living creature who doesn’t want to sleep yet. Or at least I want to sleep but without any dreams. I’ve been engrossed in the same nightmare for days and don’t want to end up there again. It worsens every night, and the next chapter doesn’t seem promising. If I take something with diphenhydramine, then the nightmare won’t happen again. It’s too late, though, because I already drank some wine, which should do the trick alone. Maybe. It hasn’t worked lately, though.

    My husband falls asleep in about five seconds. I lay there for a while, listening to him breathe calmly and peacefully. Kylie, one of our dogs, repositions herself in her crate, making a recognizable sound. Ember is in my closet, sleeping on the floor in her normal spot. I try to relax by listening to the brown noise machine that we turn on every night. I wonder if the nightmare will finally be over, and soon, as I drift off to sleep, the dream returns.

    The house is quiet and dimly lit. It’s not even my house because it’s all on one level. It’s dark in there, with the shadows creating eerie shapes on the walls. I’m immediately uncomfortable, but at least now I don’t have to wonder if the nightmare is done with me yet because it isn’t. In this quiet nightmare, the dogs quietly disappear to their beds as we approach bedtime. One minute, they’re by our side, and the next minute, they’re in another room. They don’t care about bedtime cookies anymore.

    The silence is disconcerting. I can’t hear my husband breathing, or the noise machine, or Kylie making a nest for herself in her crate. It’s like I’m wearing noise-canceling headphones. In this disconnected, dreamlike state, I want to test my nightmare to see if it’s real. Am I here again? I walk into the pantry. I know where it is located in this strange, unfamiliar, yet familiar house. I find a Costco-sized mayonnaise on a shelf and drop it on the floor. It barely makes any sound. There’s hardly a heavy thud that I’d expect. I have confirmation that the nightmare is back.

    Now I feel queasy and a little gross, probably because I drank alcohol before bed, so I want to take a shower. I don’t know why this is what I need to do, but off I go to find the bathroom. I try to call for the dogs to come in with me, but my voice falters, and the words don’t come out. I want them there to protect me, just in case. I want to go into the room where they are, but my feet take me in the opposite direction. I somehow end up in the bathroom taking a shower.

    At some terrifying point, I realized nondescript faces were watching me from outside through the high-mounted bathroom privacy window. It frightened me so much that I tried to call for help. I’m trying to make a noise, but as usual, I can’t speak above a whisper in this nightmare, and nobody is listening anyway. I tear a towel off the hook on the wall and run fearfully down the hallway to where my dogs are. When I walk into their room, they look at me silently but don’t come near me. I’m using body and facial expressions to convey what I want them to do, but I’m not getting a reaction. They stare at me. They stare through me.

    I proceed into another room, the pantry again. I start trying to drop jars of mustard, jam, and cans of beans on the floor. They fall and hit the floor silently. All I want to say now is help. The words can barely escape my lips. I hear an incognizant version of the word, like speaking a foreign unintelligible language. “No, that’s not what I meant,” I think. I try again to say help, and it still comes out garbled. Help is not available here in this quiet nightmare. I sound confused, like my Dad now.

    I try again while I flail about in my quiet, dark house where nobody can hear me at night. I’m standing in a hallway near tears, trying to shout, “Help!” I don’t want to see those nondescript faces again. “HELP!”

    “What?” My husband suddenly mumbles beside me. I’m starting to regain consciousness and wake up from the nightmare. I’m hot like I was running. “What?” my husband says again. He’s barely coherent, but he heard me say something out loud and wants to ensure I’m okay.

    “I said help,” I replied. “It’s a nightmare.” I’m still groggy.

    My husband reaches out beneath the covers and holds my hand, making me feel less alone, which is comforting. It’s a huge relief to be back where I can hear the brown noise, ceiling fan, and snoring dogs. In under a minute, he’s asleep again, though, and I’m alone with my thoughts.

    I cried while trying to process this next chapter of my dream, and the remainder of the night was restless. I lay in bed and emailed myself details from my nightmare because I feared I’d forget them, but you really can’t forget something like calling for help and being unable to vocalize it. My Dad may experience something like this soon but in real life. It’s horrifying.

    I don’t want to fall asleep again because I’m starting to hate this quiet nightmare. It’s exhausting to dread bedtime this way. I want to look forward to sleeping like everyone else does. I feel like I need to plan an Inception-type intervention for tomorrow night. I could plant a pen and paper somewhere in that dark, soundless house, and hopefully, it’ll help my words speak despite all that deafening and unsettling silence.

    I eventually think I’ll use some of the new art supplies I acquired from the JOANN store going out of business sale and paint a “featured image” for this post. I’d like to replace all the photos on my blog posts with either my own photos or my own paintings. Future plans, though.

    Until next time. Thanks for reading!

  • Rainy Days

    Rainy Days

    Daily writing prompt
    What is your favorite type of weather?
    View all responses

    Personally, I’ve always enjoyed a rainy day. There’s just something about the sound and ambiance of rain that I prefer over a bright and sunny day, although those can be just as nice. When I lived in Washington State, I’d go for regular neighborhood walks in the light rain, and in Stockholm, Sweden, I even appreciated the rainy days in the city. The sidewalks always seemed clean and refreshed after a good rain shower.

    This brings to mind how some people I know feel depressed when it rains, while I feel more relaxed, so I typed the following into Google. “Why do some people prefer rainy weather?” and it gave me some thought provoking reasons for why this might be.

    Soothing Sounds and Sights: The rhythmic sound of rain falling on rooftops or windows can be calming and even conducive to sleep. The way rain makes the world look clean and fresh, with everything appearing bright and clear after a storm, is also appealing to some.

    Relaxation and Cozy Activities: Rainy days offer a perfect excuse to stay inside, relax, and engage in activities like reading, listening to music, or spending time with loved ones.

    Cooling Effect: Rain can help cool down an area on a hot day, providing welcome relief from the heat.

    Nature’s Cleanliness: Rain helps to wash away dirt and pollutants, contributing to a sense of cleanliness and renewal.

    Psychological Benefits: Some studies suggest that exposure to negative ions, which are abundant during rain, can lift mood and reduce stress

    After reading some of those reasons, it makes sense why I’m more content than others on a rainy day. After my parents separated, my Mom moved to Mexico and eventually built a new life in a small village north of Zihuatanejo called Troncones. I didn’t see her for over a year because I had stayed in Northern California with my Dad. Once I finally flew to Mexico to spend some time with her, it was the rainy season because it was June, and I was on summer break from school.

    My Mom’s “residence” didn’t have electricity then, nor was it connected to a community water source. There was no air conditioning, and we had water for the house delivered by truck. We bought all our drinkable water. We also used a generator to power things like my laptop or her washing machine. It was all very bare bones. She simplified her life, going from being a successful small business owner in the San Francisco Bay Area to living in a rustic palapa on a Mexican beach and reevaluating her needs in life.

    In the kitchen, my Mom used a propane refrigerator and range. She had a little concrete structure poured near her driveway, which she could lock up and secure her valuables inside. On the roof were a bunch of massive water tanks. Attached to that was an outdoor shower area, and then on the opposite side of the driveway from that building was an outhouse dug into the ground. It had a privacy door made of bamboo, and when you went inside, you had to squat over a hole. I hated going there after dark because I was terrified of my flashlight falling in.

    This is how my Mom chose to live then, and she was content there. She was always kind of a hippie anyway. Trust her to use an outhouse while our friends down the beach had real toilets and electricity (it took a lot of money and effort to connect to the grid).

    My Mom’s living room had a few hammocks and original air chairs. She used to refer to her new way of life as “Deluxe camping,” but I never really saw it that way because I was always hot and uncomfortable, and if I’m candid, I was annoyed to be there. The rain offered me a welcome break from the stifling heat and a reason to sit in an air chair and read a book in the misty breeze. I was in a bad teenage mood most of the time at my Mom’s, so the rain was a blessing that naturally cooled down the temperatures of both the outside world and my internal displeasure with the whole situation.

    I must have developed a sincere fondness for the rain because as a teenager I relied on it to quiet my mind and reduce stress. My Mom and I wouldn’t argue much when it was raining. We would sit together in the hammocks or air chairs and watch it fall, and sometimes, if the risk of lightning was slim, we would even swim in the nearby tidepools. I loved sitting in the warm tropical water while the cool rain drops fell on my face and into the ocean around me. Our black labrador, Walker, would sit there with me, too. He loved going to the tidepools because he enjoyed watching all the fish.

    Lately things have been overwhelming, between my Dad, not having a solid income, and owing taxes. I really need to remind myself to relax, so I’ve been making videos using Descript, and their collection of stock video and audio. Simply creating each video seems to be a form of therapy for me, so even if nobody else enjoys my work, at least I have. I made this “Rainy Day” Relax for 5 minutes compilation today, and figured I’d share it now, because maybe all I truly need right now is a good rainy day.