The other night I had a bad nightmare. It woke me up with a pounding heart. I dreamt that a friend of mine was really ill but that nobody was telling me, for fear of upsetting me. I couldn't shake the uneasy feeling all night, waking every few hours. In the morning I contacted her to find out she'd been sent to A&E the night before...... A little disconcerting. My rational mind (which thankfully still dominates!) knows that the reason for the dream was because she'd looked very pale last time I'd seen her and I knew she was a bit unwell, just not really the nature of it. Plus she'd gone a bit quiet. So it's really not particularly surprising that my brain put all the information it already had together and created a nightmare. What would normally be a niggle in the back of my mind became a huge fear. Truthfully it hasn't shifted, but I'm allowing it to be a concern, without consuming me. I'm trying to avoid writing a whole story around it. Sometimes people are unwell. If there's anything you need to know, then you'll know it.
Then last night I had another dream. This time I was sure I had woken to see a man at the end of our bed. He was wearing a summer straw pale trilby hat. When my poor hubby woke up I told him I thought I'd dreamt his grandfather was at the end of the bed (despite no memory of seeing a the face). A man I'd never met or really seen many photos of..... wrong build, wrong height, wrong coloured hat (although he did have a trilby). Reality with this one is very probably that I'd spoken to someone a few days ago who talked about seeing her deceased daughter at the end of her bed, that my son has a summer trilby hat hanging on the top of one of the many guitars in his room, and that when looking for something earlier in the week my husband had shown me a photo of his grandad. He wasn't wearing a trilby in the photo, but I'm sure I've been told at some stage that he had one.
For those that have seen the film 'The Usual Suspects' (those that haven't, watch it - a modern classic! And don't read the next sentence - massive spoiler!!), Kevin Spacey's character makes up a story based on things he sees in the room he's being interviewed in. Just snippets from here and there, pulled together into a totally believable and complex story. I guess our brains do that all the time. Mine just seems to be doing it very vividly at night! Dreams are probably always our brains doing this. The fact that I'm doing it more vividly is probably because I'm paying more attention to things during the day now.
It feels like my brain had become completely overactive at night. Signals flying everywhere! It often feels like that during the day too, but night time is worse. I find it interesting and hope it's indicative of healing. I also hope it settles itself, as I could do with a good nights sleep! I even sometimes wonder if all the daily meditation and calmness is leading to my brain just saving everything up and churning it all out when I'm sleeping!
Who knows? I'm certainly not a brain expert and I'd imagine there's loads of different theories. Some will read this and believe I've gone completely mad, some will think I've become psychic and others will be interested by it all and believe the same as me about the science of why it's happening. Part of me wants to know so much more about the brain, how it functions, what the cancer and treatment does....... the full science behind the brain and dreams etc. I remember seeing my scans initially and being totally fascinated by them. The issue I'll always have is that I overthink..... so to start finding out all those things could be a bit too much for me at the current time. God knows what dreams I'd start having!! Too much knowledge can be a bad thing too.... so I'll wait until I've got this thing beaten and then I'll maybe start to learn a bit more.....
I think I'll just stick with being amazed and awestruck by the strength of our brains. Being comforted by its ability to do the most amazing things. If it can do all that, it can shift a few dodgy cells, surely??
Xxx
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