Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Eight hours

Of un-interrupted sleep.

That's all I'm asking.

The last week or so I've been sleeping shitty and I don't know why. I'm not sick and I'm feeling pretty good for the most part.

It's these damn dreams I've been having.

The latest one is me reliving a time in my life I'd soon forget. It happened on July 17th, 1987, four months before I was to be discharged.

I was standing in the door of a C-130 flying at 1900 feet. Static line was hooked, and the green light came on.

I stepped out the door into nothing, going instinctively into a perfect PLF... Chin in my chest, legs together, knees slightly bent, toes together pointed at the ground.

I count...

One-thousand one, one-thousand two, one-thousand three, then...

Nothing.

I should have felt the jerk and heard the pop of the canopy deploying... But nothing happened.

1900 feet is not a lot of altitude when you have to deploy the reserve and cut away the streamer...

The unexpected happens. Bladders release, bowels turn fluid...

I was able to deploy my reserve canopy for real when it happened, but it made this ex-paratrooper an avowed acrophobe. I get vertigo standing on a damn step-stool now.

But in my dream I keep falling, faster and faster...

And wake in a cold sweat hours before I need to wake, and unable to get back to sleep.

I wonder if it's my subconscious telling me something in some sort of sick metaphor?

Copyright 2005 Thomas J Wolfenden

4 comments:

Dirk said...

I had eight hours sleep once.
1983, I think it was.

Sydney said...

Yeah,if its sick or nasty its DEFINITELY your subconscious talking to you. Afer all, where
else would we keep all the sick stuff? ;)

The Middle Child said...

Dude, you need to go see your doctor, it is not healthy to not get enough sleep. People think that it's just sleep they are losing, but it's not just sleep. You are losing a lot more. I went to my doctor and he gave me medication for stress, "It will help you sleep he says because you won't be stressing so much"
Well, I sleep good, I have some pretty wild dreams, but none that actually wake me up. It is quite the entertainment in my head at night.
Anyway, good luck with that, I hope you get some sleep soon!!

Thomas J Wolfenden said...

Bek, my doctor did prescribe me some really, really good stuff for insomnia when my marriage first fell apart and I still have some.

(Seroquel)

But they're really TOO good. Last time I took a HALF of one, 5mg, I slept for 26 hours straight.

I don't have insomnia anymore, those horrible visions are far, far in the past. It's just these really vivid dreams come up from time to time now, not every day, and when they hit they scare the shit out of me sometimes and then I just can't get back to sleep.

They don't happen often, just when I've got to get up early for some thing or another.