Dreams/Nightmares

Not a night goes by since bonking my head, that I don't have several vivid dreams. Usually one of them is a nightmare and the rest are just a big ol' crazy circus. I usually remember three to five of those dreams verbatim.

Is it any wonder I'm so tired?

Pipe in dreamy harp-like music, and enter RG's subconscious...

My ex-manager came to my house and told me that I was laid off. I told her that she had no authority to lay me off because A: she wasn't my manager anymore and B: she no longer worked for the company. It was then, that she told me that she really DID work for the company still and it was under wraps. She said that the department I'd left was told that they had to do budget cuts and she was retroactively laying me off.



She then took my company laptop and left my house.

In this dream/nightmare, it was a Sunday night and I didn't have my current manager's phone number, so I had to stew about it until the next morning. While stewing, I thought "hmmm.... I would get 8 months severance pay if I didn't fight this" (true story- I've worked for the company so long that I'd receive 8 months...).

But nooooooooooooooooooo..... I wanted to work. Who cares about an 8 month vacation? I was more worried about my reputation and how it would look to everyone in the company that I, the irreplaceable RG, was laid off.

I called my current manager the next day and just as she was about to tell me whether [x-manager] could really do this, a windstorm started up and made a lot of noise waking me up.

/end dreamy harp-like music and leaving RG's subconscious now.

I know exactly where this dream came from. Everyone say it with me- THANKS DAD!

I'm pretty sure that this nightmare was brought on by something my dad wrote to me yesterday:

Subject: Words of Wisdom 2
Hi Lori,

Here's comes a repeat of my once before words of wisdom.

You need to take time off and enjoy life. Enjoy your yard and birds and other critters. [name of my company] will go on without you. You have friends and family who love you and want you well and that is infinitely more important that any work assignment.

Love,
Dad

Of course he's right (well, in this case anyway- he's not right in his political leanings.. ha ha ha). I replied that I just wasn't sure how I could do that- take it easy- in this job market. I also told him that I am keeping my eye on the prize... retirement on 01/31/2015.

I think this dream/nightmare said a whole lot about my mind set. Rather than gracefully accept 8 months of full pay and say goodbye to the rat race for a while- I wanted to fight it so I could keep working.

This girl needs an attitude adjustment.

PS- I have a paid holiday today! woo hoo! Maybe this time I'll get caught up on all my pals' blogs.

Good times, my friends. Good times.

I left the Halloween candy for the trick-or-treaters in the very capable hands of the bearded eye-roller, and headed off to the sleep study center at 7pm. As an aside, I asked BER to please take any leftover Halloween candy with him to work the next day so I'd keep my grubby paws out of it, and was disappointed pleased to find out that he did indeed do as I'd requested. Meh- no chocolate in the house.

Anyhoo- I was a little uncomfortable with the set up. There were four patients and two technologists. I was the only woman in the center. That kind of creeped me out. Of course, it was Halloween, and we're supposed to be creeped out, eh?

I was asked to wash my hair the day of the procedure and not use ANY product or conditioner. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? No product? Me? Even worse, I had to take off my makeup and be seen in public (well, just the sleep-study center public) bare-faced. So, there I was in all my naturalness ready to be hooked up to what seemed like a million wires.

The technologist (a very yacky fellow, I might note- and we ALL know how I feel about yacky people) asked me to take my seroquil before hooking me up. Normally, the seroquil takes about 45 minutes to kick in, and I assumed I'd be tucked in bed by the time it knocked me out.

Not so much.

It took him over an hour to hook me up, so by the time he was done I was pretty much a zombie (again, PERFECT for Halloween!) I have a picture of it, but really- I do have my limits as to what I'll show here on my blog. If you want to see, email me at risiblegirl at gmail dot com and I'll send it to you (depending on who you are. STEW? Forget it! ha ha). I look pretty bad between all the stuff on my face and the totally spaced out look on my face. Seriously BAD.

Basically, I had a bunch of wires glued to my head,


wires taped to my face (with adhesive- and we all know what adhesive does to me), a heart monitor, leg monitors (glad I shaved my legs right before leaving the house!) a band around my waist, a band under my arm pits, and some weird little thing up my nose and in my mouth. I looked a little like Hitler with the tape holding that thing in place.

There were two things against me getting good sleep. I wasn't allowed a clock and I wasn't allowed to sleep on my stomach. I am a serial clock-watcher and NEED to know what time it is every minute of the day. BER will attest to the fact that I'm quite OCD about my clock watching. There must be a clock in every room of the house and it must be accurate.

Yup- I'm a freak.

Now, the only way they were going to catch me doing my nightly (several times a night, according to BER ) ritual of pretending to watch TV was if I was on my stomach. They'll just have to trust the report he completed for the sleep study- because I'm sure it didn't happen since I was on my back. Oh, I've started something new according to BER. I now look like I'm washing my face in my sleep. With all this touching of my face during the night- it's a wonder I haven't developed acne.

I had LOTS of weird dreams that night, in fact- more than I usually have. When the tech woke me up the next morning he asked if I'd had any dreams and was surprised when I told him how many and could tell him in vivid detail what they were. He said that I am apparently someone who dreams outside of REM because I wasn't dreaming at all during REM. I looked this up, and that's not particularly unusual- but it does explain why I act out in my dreams. REM basically paralyzes you, so unless you have a REM disorder- you can't sleep-walk, sleep-talk, (or sleep-watch TV!) while you're in REM. He said that he couldn't share anything with me about the study except that I needed to invest in a mouth guard ASAP, and I don't have sleep apnea. He said that I was one of the worst teeth-grinders he's ever seen.

I was pretty excited to go home the next morning, but the tech said that this might not happen. He said that he was going to talk to one of the doctors to see if I needed to stay for the day study. He told me that he was pretty sure they'd say yes.

He was right.

At least I was able to get out of my sheep jammies (thanks sis for the sheep jammies- they were a big hit with the technologist, laughing about the idea that I could just count the sheep on my jammies instead of in my head.)

Here's a pic in the morning- hair askew, no makeup and no Hitler mustache anymore:


What you can't see in the pic is the patches of rash from the adhesive tape. I still have big circles on my chest from the heart monitors, circles on my legs from the leg monitors and a rash under my chin and the sides of my face. Too bad Halloween is over- I have the leper look without even trying.

For the day study, they have you lay down every two hours for 20 minutes to see if you fall asleep, for a total of five studies. I was surprised to find that I fell asleep (heavy sleep) during each of those 'naps'. They come in and wake you up after the 20 minutes and you spend the next 1:40 doing whatever.

I still have the 'script' they use to callibrate the monitors before each nap.

Without moving your head, look to the left
Now look to the right
Look to the left
annnnnnnnd look to the right
Now look up
Look down
Look up
Look down
Now look straight ahead and blink five times
Grind your teeth
Relax
Grind your teeth
Relax
Grind your teeth
Relax
Now close your eyes and relax. I'll see you when we're done.

I looked up day studies on the Internet and from what I've read, it looks like they're checking for Narcolepsy. Some of the pieces fit- but I've never gone to sleep during the middle of a conversation (that I'm aware of, anyway), nor have I gone to sleep while being active. Of course there's a lot of things I'm doing in my sleep since the head bonking incident that I've never done before. Maybe bonking my head caused some sort of weird sleep disorder. I guess I'll find out in two weeks.

So, there you have it. How I spent my Halloween. I must say, it was the BEST costume I've ever had.

• The bearded eye-roller was out for his monthly investment club meeting the other night, so I had some fun with wax. I'm an eyebrow plucker and never had my eyebrows professionally waxed. I decided to try waxing them myself. BIG MISTAKE. Thankfully my eyebrows survived (for the most part), but only because I carefully pulled the wax off bit by bit in order to not have half an eyebrow. The leftover wax is now safely in the garbage.



• Does anyone else do this? Do you ever look at some of the outfits that people pull together and ask yourself, "What were they thinking?" I wish I could download some of those outfits from my head into my blog. Let's just say that some people are VERY creative. Not in a good way.



• I had a bizarre dream about my mother last night. My sleep study is next Wednesday (Halloween!) and I guess it's on my mind. In this dream, my mom was having a sleep study on the same day, so we went together. Turns out that the room they put us in was like a big warehouse full of people on rolling gurneys. I was nervous about this because I couldn't see how they could possibly get everyone hooked up to the wires and stuff by bed time. (They never did get around to it in my dream).
  
  There were a lot of crabby people in that room and lots of fights. Maybe that's why my mom decided to go all gangsta with her change of clothes. She decided to leave at some point because of all the fighting and I was surprised to see her wearing a hooded sweatshirt and her pants down below her underwear- like this:
  
  
  Besides looking odd- it made her walk funny. I can imagine that it would be difficult to walk with your pants like that.



• I'm starting to feel a little very overwhelmed at work. No big surprise, I'm sure. I'm constantly given less than a day turnaround time to pull a rabbit out of my hat. While I enjoy a faster pace, it can be a little scary. Yesterday's 'rabbit' was particularly uncomfortable. Our senior executive wanted me to create a site where people could add questions or topics that they wanted him to speak on. After everyone had their 'say', I sent him the list. He then asked me to write his talking points.
  
  What's wrong with this? These were questions directed toward him- things I can't answer like, "How do you envision the organization changing over the next two months". How would *I* know? I wrote him back, saying I'd be happy to write his talking points if he could give me a brief answer to the questions. He 'invited' me to go ahead and take a stab at them and then he'd edit.
  
  
  
  In addition to this, I have no less than 20 projects I'm actively working on- and most of them have a lot at stake. I think it's time for an intervention from my manager because honestly I don't feel that I can do a good job at anything with all of this on my plate, and none of it is something I can do on autopilot (meaning I can't work until 2am because I need brain cells to do this stuff-unlike my last job). Meh.

Anyhoo- still don't have much blogging mojo in me. Not sure if that's going to change anytime soon.

FINALLY- the sleep study is scheduled. I swear, if I didn't keep up on those office workers at the neurologists office, nothing would get done.

The study is scheduled for 10/31. I think with all the wires and stuff I'll be wearing, it'll make for a perfect Halloween costume. Yes, there will be pictures- you can bet on it.

The gal at the sleep center said that my doctor ordered a special study in which I may have to stay the next day as well. Bonus! She said they provide breakfast and lunch! MMMMMM.... hospital food.

I really want to get this dumb study done. Even though I'm 'sleeping' at night, I'm still doing very strange things and having lots of bizarre nightmares. A couple of nights ago I had one so real that the bearded eye-roller could NOT convince me that it didn't happen. It continued on through the next morning while I was awake. I won't share details with you because I know you'll be sending the men in the white coats. Trust me. I'm surprised that Heidi hasn't already ordered the men to take me away. BER, on the other hand, thinks it's funny. I don't think he quite 'gets' what I was describing to him. Probably just as well.

I'm off to a two day conference to a place where the main goal is to make you gain 100 lbs. The conference starts at 1p.m. and goes until 9pm today, then 7:30 a.m. until 5 or 6 tomorrow. Bleh. Maybe that's when they should do the sleep study. I'm guaranteed to want to nap during this big snoozefest.

Maybe I'll post pictures of my watch as it ticks down the hours until I get to leave. Won't that be fun?

::snort:: I'll bet that title got your attention. RG! How MEAN!!!!

Last night was wacky dream night (and, according to the bearded eye-roller a very active wacky dream night). I remember several of my dreams, mostly about my mom and dad, my sis and my youngest brother. Michael was nowhere in the picture- which is exactly how I'd imagined it when we were growing up.

Love you bro, mean it!

Anyway, my poor sis was going through the gawky teenage years in this dream. She had super bushy hair (with a hair cut that only accentuated said bushiness), one tooth up front that was still a baby tooth and looked REALLY odd. And, best of all? She was using coconut shells to fill her bra. Baby coconuts. It looked really bad, but she thought it looked great. Poor girl....

I think the coconuts came from a conversation Heidi and I had at lunch the other day about baby coconuts. That's the only thing I can come up with.

I remember in this dream, she was very self-conscious about the way she looked (understandably so, I might add!) and I kept telling her that she'd grow out of it and become a beauty.

Thankfully, she never had that ugly phase (although the braces weren't exactly yelling SUPERMODEL) but she really is a beauty. I'd give ANYTHING to have her hair- it has just the perfect curl to it. And her nose? Gah- talk about cute!

Really, I could go on and on about how cute my sis is (and maybe want to do so to make up for having such a wacky dream).

Sis, I'm glad you've given up the coconuts. You weren't fooling anyone.