Nightmares.

[Sidhe]

Every night it is the same shit. Nightmare after nightmare after nightmare. It's a miracle if I can have one good dream a month. Some of them are less horrible than others, and to an extent I've gotten used to them, but it's not an uncommon occurrence for me to wake up sobbing or, worse yet, screaming. If I'm sleeping with other people around, they'll often have to wake me up because I will start whimpering in my sleep.

Most people close to me know I have nightmares, but they don't know just how much they plague me. Though I have reoccurring themes in my dreams, I don't have specific reoccurring nightmares; my mind seems to never run out of ways to horrify me. Most commonly it involves the people I love most treating me like trash. My mother throwing me out of moving vehicles. Telling me I should go ahead and kill myself. Telling me that I'm a burden to her and to everyone around me. My best friend getting fed up with me. My entire family telling me I'm insufferable and never wanted. Losing my cats, finding them dead.

Those are difficult enough. Those are usually the dreams that have me sobbing when I wake up. The most horrible ones are violent and deeply horrifying. My mind knows exactly how to torture me. It knows me terrifies me the most. Being helpless in the vehicle of someone else, someone running over innocent people - children - and the astute feeling of skulls crushing underneath the pressure of tires. Train collisions. Witnessing suicides. Body parts everywhere. Being drenched in blood. Veering off of cliffs. Being forced to drive a vehicle and crashing into everything and anything possible. The endless, hopeless feeling of falling and knowing my death is imminent and only seconds away.

If things are particularly bad, between these horrible nightmares and trying to force myself awake, I'll end up experiencing sleep paralysis. That's not uncommon either.

A long time ago I taught myself how to dream lucidly, though it's not a constant thing or a particularly strong skill. Sometimes I can salvage my dreams. I can 'rewind' them. Sometimes, if I veer a car off a cliff, it will land in water, or float down like a cloud... we'll survive. But this happens so rarely, and even when I do 'rewind' things, some other horrible thing just takes their place.

People ask me why I'm so tired all the time.

This. This is why. I wish I didn't have to dream. I hate going to sleep. I hate it. It's 2 AM right now and I'm putting off sleep because of this. It's a nightly routine. I don't go to sleep until I'm so tired I can't keep my eyes open. I never want to dream again.

 

[Kestrel]

Have you tried meditation? It's simple but emptying your mind for 30min a day does wonders.

 

[Sidhe]

I've tried it, but I feel like I'm too high strung to find any benefit from it. My mind races so much, I have trouble letting go. More than one therapist of mine has suggested it in the past, but it's never worked for me. :(

 

[Kestrel]

Hm. What about something like swimming, running or biking? Get a (waterproof) mp3, put on a bunch of (instrumental) songs and just focus on the activity. You won't have to sit still, and you can focus on your form. You could also try looking for help or guidance when it comes to meditation. Stress often nests itself into the body as well as the mind, so something like yoga, a sauna or a massage might help. In fact, you could try a combination of these things.

Or you can do like me; grow an ego so inflated it's size rival Jupiter and become arrogant enough to conider scenarios like those in your nightmares so unlikely the images they show you become slapstick.

 

[Rare]

Have you ever try using a dreamcatcher?

 

[Sidhe]

@Rare
I don't really believe in that kind of thing... sorry. :( I think things like dreamcatchers and other spiritual remedies only really help if you can put faith in them.