Small slices of insanity

On Wednesday night I had nightmares all night. I remember waking up several times and, while I didn't remember any of the dreams specifically, I recalled that they covered a wide variety of subject matter. They kept switching all the time, rather than being just one solid long dream. At lunch with Erica on Thursday I tried to recall any part of the night and I couldn't.

This morning when I was taking a shower a small part of one of the dreams came back to me, and caused a small panic attack. I couldn't breathe, my vision started to get spotty, and my stomach started to hurt like I was going to throw up. But when I calmed down, I couldn't remember the part of the dream that had come back to me.

It happened again less than an hour later. Standing in the kitchen, I looked at my counter at a necklace and some Target coupons, and I remembered part of the dream, which caused another panic. I had to sit down and put my head down on the dining room table, and when it passed I was sweaty and exhausted. Again, I couldn't remember the part of the dream that had inspired the panic. I moved the necklace and the Target coupons to two different locations.

My only thought is that these were true nightmares, the kind that can really fuck with your brain, and my brain is doing its best to protect me from them. The fact that I remember things for a second or two but not long enough to lock it into memory suggests that my brain knows something about them that I don't know.

I'm hoping to make it through the day without losing my mind. I don't understand why this has happened twice this morning already--and it's only 10am. Part of me wants to remember the dreams so that I can tell myself that they were dreams, things impossible to happen. But I've never needed to put my head down on my dining room table and remind myself that I was awake and that everything was okay, that I was not dreaming, before. Apparently these are some high powered dreams.