I suffer from crippling bouts of early morning insomnia. People offer suggestions such as “limit screen time before bed” or “stop being so crazy” but still my eyes fly open regularly at 3am. I have a patented move I call Pillow Cloud™ whereby I fold mine in half and wrap it around my head, leaving a small hole for breathing, and sometimes this buys me a weird dream or two. The cat usually recognizes it as a kind of shield and will not step on me to initiate Food-Time Wakeup™, though sometimes the sensors get clogged with feathers or the two devices otherwise do not communicate.
The bonus of early morning insomnia are the dreams when I do manage to fall back to sleep. The other night I dreamt there was a squirrel in my basement and I had a dickens of a time catching it with my bare hands. When I finally grabbed hold long enough to open the door and fling it into the backyard, I noticed a woman catching another squirrel in a much more effective, professional manner. The trick was, it seems, grabbing a squirrel by its ears, at which point it becomes docile and compliant. It was certainly my subconscious’ knockoff of the way a cat carries kittens. (translation: please don’t try it at home but if you do, comment in great detail about the experience.)
The dream, lazy as my subconscious is, was born of an incident the night before involving a cricket in our basement. In the time I went upstairs to get something to catch it in, the cat was all over it in wild chase. I did manage to wrestle the cricket away and release it outside, saving its life and our indoor sanity, but no doubt depriving the cat of a little fun. This might explain all the early morning stepping-on.
This morning in my facebook feed, I saw the following update: “I found a squirrel in my car!”
Another update from a different person read: “I’m getting a pet monkey!”
In both cases, I believe the exclamation points are warranted and not just braggadocious. (not recognized by spellcheck. FYI.) Both updates were from people I went to high school with and just saw at our 25 year reunion. I’m not sure what it all means except it’s hard to feel accomplished when others are literally living your dreams.
I have bouts of insomnia, and the same thing happens when I do fall back to sleep — strange, vivid dreams of really weird stuff. Also, one of my friends recently posted, I’m getting a pet monkey! I suspect it had more to do with a meme of some sort.
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Oh haha! Now I don’t feel so jealous (about the monkey, not insomnia).
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If I go to bed too early, I wake up early and have a hard time falling back asleep too. I’m grateful that I’m not working a 9-5 job these days or I’d be one sleepy girl. (PS. I love an afternoon nap!)
I love your squirrel dream and I can picture your cat chasing a cricket all over the basement. I saved a spider the other day, no kidding, by putting it in a take out cup with a lid and depositing it outside. 🙂
This morning I woke up at 5am, fell back asleep again, and dreamt of an old friend that has some bad baggage. I’m hoping it means this person is working on some personal inventory.
xo
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I get 6-7 hours of sleep when I wake too early. I’ve heard we need less sleep as we get older, but man, I feel bedraggled with anything under 7. Naps are the best. Good work on the spider!
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This is pretty odd, yet funny. I have occcassional bouts of insomnia. I dont have them as much anymore, because exercise and yoga take care of it. I do find that if I stay on my laptop past 11 pm, itll cause mini bouts of insomnina.
I also have weird insomniac dreams. Thanks for sharing.
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Yoga sounds nice. I keep wanting to try meditation again. Thanks for your comment!
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Its very peaceful and energizing. Thanks for sharing your humor with us.
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I laughed out loud!
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Thanks!
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A bunch of my friends are getting monkeys, too. Now, this is either a new fad that I will not embrace until it has expired, or it’s one of those secret message Facebook things that seem to go on to support breast cancer recognition month, like last year’s “I’m flying to Madrid, or Madagascar or Timbuktu.”
I have those vivid dreams after falling back to sleep, too, most of them involve me chasing George Clooney. I’ll try grabbing him by his ears next time to see if he’ll quit fighting off my advances. lol
Happy October, My Squirrely Friend! (spellcheck doesn’t recognize squirrely or squirrelly)
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You know what? They’re both breast cancer awareness memes. But squirrelly is a real word and good luck catching George!
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I use a mask to help me sleep better. It’s Ronald Reagan, so I don’t know how much it helps Dawn’s sleep, but it works for me. I can really tune out behind those eyes. (No, sorry — ) I relate to the insomnnia, have no advice, except try to make it work for you, which sounds like you are. I tried incorporating dreams into my early-morning writing practice this past winter and found it helped me kick-start myself, by describing the dream, and then often the dream would have some thematic plug-in to my story, and I tried to get it so they were connected, and I’d start dreaming about the story. (And that was my ‘dry January,’ if you can believe that.) One story for you: we have a large bat outside our back door that’s noise activated and makes terrifying sounds erratically, if the door’s closed hard enough. Yesterday Dawn thought it was squeaking but it was the cat actually, who had a mouse. A real squeak. OK, enjoy the day and the pumpkin patches and whatnot!
Bill
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Ha! We saw this lifelike giant baby mask at the Halloween store which might help me sleep like one. And yes, mice really do squeak. I’m pretty good at catching those too, not to toot my own horn.
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Mon sage est dans la piscine! That requires an exclamation mark – only French I remember from my school lessons. Why this is relevant I have no idea but my mind wanted to write it!
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Double ‘Like’!
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Be glad he was in your basement and not the attic. I get those too often but will try the ear-grabbing trick next time.
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Remember to write about it, sparing no detail, and of course only once the bandages come off.
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Hot damn this is funny. What does it all mean? I have no clue! Haha. But I hope you’re able to get better rest. A good ole piece of absurdism. Like reading a Pynchon novel.
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