Should I follow my dreams?

I’ve been feeling quite well these past few months I’m please to say.  Unfortunately, it makes for a less interesting blog - as you may have noticed.  I’ve become much more in tune with my mind and body over the past year, and the associated subtleties that might indicate any possible mood swings - my early warning signs.  These include my dreams.  In a earlier blog I’ve discussed my bipolar dreams at length so I won’t go into the nitty gritty details again.  While I’ve always been a dreamer sometimes my dreams become more vivid and significant, not your ‘normal forgetful’ type of dream.  When these vivid dreams occur often within a narrow period of time I sit up and take notice.  It means my bipolar brain is acting up and I need to sort it out before it gets out of hand.  

Over the last couple weeks I’ve been having strange, intense, gripping dreams about animals. Particularly, bears and birds.  The animals are always hurt but never myself.  I feel strong empathy for them which I can not reconcile.  Even after I wake up the emotional intensity of the dream stays with my all day and several days after.  This is what concerns me.  When my dream bothers me for days afterwards its a bad sign.  

I’m hoping that writing this out might help me deal with it somehow.... I dunno.   

Let me tell you about my dreams:

Dream 1 was about the bear.  I was in the woods (no particular location, somewhere here in Canada I’d guess) when I came across a black bear.  I do not know why, but me and the black bear had a physical altercation and I ended up badly hurting its front left limb.   It retreated in great pain.  I was unharmed (which in reality would be absurd, as I would never expect to win a wrestling match with a bear!!! crazy!!).  Immediately I was filled with regret and an overwhelming feeling of remorse.  I wanted to help the bear but it ran off and I could do nothing more about it.  After I woke up I could not shake the remorsefulness I felt, and couldn’t help wondering what was going to happen to the bear.  I know the dream was not real but I could not shake my concern for the bear.  Its stayed with ever since, its been a week now.   

Dream 2 was about the birds.  A couple nights ago I dreamt that I was living in some type of apt or condo building that was rather old.  It was not my current residence. I had a pet bird, specifically a robin, that I often let wander around the apt because I felt bad it was caged up.  One day it disappeared.  Apparently the old building had cracks in the walls and animals often got lost in the walls and so forth.  When the little bird finally came back it was hungry, ruffled but OK.  Then suddenly other lost birds began coming into my apt after him.  There were 3 other birds that looked very haggard.  I felt so bad for them and wanted to ease their suffering as I could see they were hungry, injured and scared.  Almost like they had PTSD. I don’t know how they ended up lost in the first place or how  they came to my apt, or if they had owners in the same building, or anything at all...  It was like watching birds coming out of hiding after a war.  Strange.   

So, yeah, basically its been dreams like this... for days now I can’t stop thinking about these animals in pain, my fault or not.   I have not had any actual experiences with bears or birds recently, so I’m stumped as to why I’m having these types of dreams suddenly.  Alas, I turn to the online dream interpretation websites because I have no other idea on what to do about all this.   

Here’s what the almighty web has giveth me in response:

Bear:
To see a bear in your dream symbolizes independence, the cycle of life, death and renewal, and resurrection. You are undergoing a period of introspection and thinking. The dream may also be a pun on "bare". Perhaps you need to bare your soul and let everything out into the open. To dream that you are being pursued or attacked by a bear denotes aggression, overwhelming obstacles and competition. You may find yourself in a threatening situation. To see a polar bear in your dream signifies a reawakening. Alternatively, the polar bear symbolizes your frigid and cold emotions.

Bird:
To see birds in your dream symbolizes your goals, aspirations and hopes. To dream of chirping and/or flying birds represents joy, harmony, ecstasy, balance, and love. It denotes a sunny outlook in life. You are experiencing spiritual freedom and psychological liberation. It is almost as if a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. To dream of dead or dying birds indicates disappointments. You will find yourself worrying over problems that are nagging on your mind. To see bird eggs in your dream symbolize money. To see deformed or odd birds in your dream, indicates that you have a unique outlook and perspective on romance and love. The dream may also represent a lack of understanding in affairs of the heart. 

Robin: 

To see a robin in your dream represents new beginnings and a time for growth. You are feeling invigorated and inspired by the possibilities that are out there for you. Alternatively, it signifies self-sacrifice.

N.B. I tried to find the meaning of empathy and remorse but was unsuccessful.   Apparently only simple emotions like fear, anger and sadness are explained. Oh well. 

OK, so, do I see a theme here that might be helpful?   

The keywords: independence, obstacles and disappointments, introspection on life, re-awakening, time for growth, unique outlook and bright outlook on the future all resonate with me in regards to a personal issue.  Its the only sensible conclusion I can draw from this at the moment.  

(N.B. I’m not sure if I believe in this methodology or not, dream interpretation is a type of parapsychology that I’m on the fence about because of the broad interpretations that can be made. But its intriguing none-the-less.  Entertaining at the worst. So why not give it a shot?).

The possible link I feel between these intense, persistent dreams with the personal issue I am currently dealing with helps reconcile all this. It was a relief actually (if true), as in the past these vivid dreams often foreshadow a manic upswing.   

Now, naturally, you must be wondering what this personal issue is.  I wish I could come right out and tell you all about it, but honestly, I’m not comfortable discussing it on this blog.  I know this might sound strange considering the subject matter I’ve openly discussed, and how I’ve made an effort to maintain anonymity.  But since it has nothing to do with bipolar disorder, mental illness, prostitution or my societal commentaries using these topics as a unique filter/p.o.v., I have to keep it separate.  

What I can say about it is this - a couple weeks ago I had an inspiring idea to write a book. It has absolutely nothing to do with manic depression or my escort work.  It relates to something different that I have interest and some expertise in.  I’m not so conceited that I think this blog is more important than it is (just a blip in cyberspace), or if I’m kidding myself about my writing abilities, but if (in my wildest dreams) I actually write this book and it gets published (I can imagine surely, however unlikely), I’d be afraid that somehow someone would connect the dots.  I’m that afraid of being outed as a prostitute.  So I hope you understand my hesitation, vagueness and fear.              

Anyway, now that my vagueness has been somewhat explained, I’ll continue.  After the idea came to me, roughly 2 weeks ago, I thought it over for a couple days before deciding to act on it.  By this I’m referring to typing out my ideas and deciding if I should even mention it to someone else.   Because then it feels real and accountable if somebody else knows about it.  After typing out a solid outline of the book I wanted to write, I felt I had something solid and then I mentioned it to 2 friends.  The first was wishy-washy, but the second was fully supportive and encouraged me to give it a go.   I’m afraid to get my hopes up too high about it, but its something that I do think has honest potential, so I decided to really give it a go.  I’ve been working on it, with sincere effort, for the past week.  If if gets published I think it would be the appropriate time for me to retire from my escort work (or at least reduce it to part-time) and take my life in a different direction.  I know I’m a decent writer (no Stephen King mind you, but better than average I feel I can honestly say).  I’m hesitant to get my hopes up, but if a person doesn’t have something to challenge them or dream about for the future then life can get discouraging at times.  Consider all the people who play Lotto 6/49 every week.  I’m not alone out there.   

Pulling all of this together, I don’t think its a coincidence that my intense vivid  dreams started near the same time my book idea did.  I can see a connection now.  Perhaps its just wishful thinking, but it provides a me with an, albeit limited, sense of validation and encouragement regarding this writing project.  Its obviously struck a nerve deep in me if its the reason for these dreams. Which is a much more appealing explanation than I’m about to have an episode!  

Wow, I feel better already. Writing all this stuff out in black & white (so to speak) really does help me so much.  I honestly don’t care how many people read this blog if it makes me feel just a little better on the inside.   -------    Yet, I can’t deny its also become important to me that my stories are shared with others, and considered interesting in some way.  I’d like others to understand both bipolar disorder and prostitution better, with broader perspectives.  That makes me feel good too.  I don’t want society to think I’m a bad person or have wasted so many years of my life, because I don’t feel that way at all.  I‘m a little surprised at this, and how much it matters to me.   Maybe if I discover I can have a career in writing I’ll eventually get this topic out in the open.  But not yet.  I’m not ready.  

In conclusion, I’m still here and doing OK.  Feeling alright both physically and mentally. I’ve been maintaining the status quo for quite some time, hence - boring.  Its just recently over the past couple weeks something interesting has been happening which I felt was worth writing about.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  Cross your fingers for me and send me some positive vibes please.   BSW is still here, sometimes I’m just a little different. 

Last nights nightmare

I had another nightmare last night.  It was very slum dog millionaire-ish.  Here goes...

I was traveling with a friend who betrayed me.  We had to stop to ask for directions but the guy I was with had set me up (unbeknownst to me at the time, until afterwards when it was far far too late).  We stopped into a  house where he said he thought could give us help pointing us in the right direction.   When we got inside and sat down on the couch I knew something wasn’t right.  It smelled stale inside, like the doors and windows had not been opened for a long long time. I didn’t like the smell inside, it smelled of fear, deceit, trouble.  The furniture was old and raggedy.  Like it had been through the Salvation Army thrift store a couple times round.  There was a middle age man and woman in the living room that had a strange look about them. They looked tired, strained and had fine lines deep through their faces, built in firm over some hard years.  They looked tired, uncomfortable but resolved. 

I didn’t like any of it. What the hell was my friend thinking bringing me here?! I tried to excuse myself but the woman hauled out a large butcher knife from under her seat and told me to sit back down and shut up.  The next thing I knew her male partner produced a syringe with some strange foul yellowish-greenish colored liquid inside it.  A large syringe about 10-cc I’d guess. He moved quickly and methodically, like he had planned it out precisely in his mind and executed this maneuver many times before.  Before I could get off the couch he plunged the needle deep into my arm, up near the shoulder, the same place where we got our grade school booster shots.  It was like I watched it all happen in slow motion. A train wreck you couldn’t turn away from but was helpless to prevent.  I watched him depress the plunger into my arm almost in disbelief, it all happened in slow motion it seemed. I felt the bite of the needle, a face-slap of reality, sting of betrayal, all in the 30 seconds that passed before I blacked out.  

I don’t know how long I was unconscious.  It could have been hours or maybe even days.  Although I lost my sense of time, I had not lost my sense of feeling, my sensation of pain, both physical and emotional.  I’m not sure which was greater.  The severity of the fear was matched by the pain that racked my body when I attempted to move.  I decided to stay still for the moment, laying down as I was, and instead to just open my eyes to gather information on my situation. Where was I?  I was still in the dingy living room.  There were soiled towels laying on the dull grey carpet but otherwise nothing was different, expect it was mercifully empty at least.  I was relieved to be alone.  I shifted my eyes down the length of my body next.  What shape was I in? What was done to me? Why did I hurt so much, so tremendously? 

My clothes were still on me, but they felt different. LIke when someone else dresses you, it feels different.  My clothes were removed I realized.  Attempting to move again I felt agonizing pain in my belly and my hands.  I lifted my hands and looked at them.  They were mutilated.  Instead of my normally slender well manicured fingers I saw a vision of digits that had been selectively cut away.  I still had all 10 fingers but half of them had sections removed. 5 of them were stumps that had half the bones removed or cut away.  They were horrific, mutilated and too painful to move.  I didn’t understand the point of the procedure.  Why do this to my fingers? My hands?  This was just sadistic, finger bones were not valuable.  Where they crazy or cruel or both?  I’d never be able to play the piano or type again. And for what reason? I didn’t understand why. 

Besides the pain from my disfigured hands there was one more source of physical pain in my body which racked through my core whenever I tried to get up.  I forced my mangled hands to raise my shirt to look at my stomach.  I knew what had happened without a doubt.  They had removed my right kidney also.  My left side was ok, they were at least sympathetic enough to leave me one I needed to live with.  They didn’t harvest all my organs at least.  But then why did they do something so cruel and seemingly pointless and profitless to my hands??  I understood them stealing my kidney in a sick greedy sense.  I could deal with that and accept that, as shitty as it was.  But I couldn’t reconcile what had been done to my fingers.  

As much pain as I was in I had to get up and get out of there.  I had felt pain like this before.  I had an appendectomy several years ago and I remember waking up in the recovery room after the anesthesia had worn off. I was post-op and had no pain relief.  The severity of that pain had burned a place in my mind and I’ll never forget it.  It was this same pain and I needed to get up and walk out of there without being able to scream at the anesthesiologist this time.  This time I was on my own and I was getting the hell out of there no matter how much it hurt.  I left that evil place and all I can remember was walking out into the night towards a better place. 

Bipolar Sandman

Disclaimer - this is not a very sexy blog. Its dark and deep. Different from what I've written about before. But hey, I'm bipolar, so what were you expecting? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY3LAFJbKyY&feature=related 

Metallica - Enter Sandman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg92QpjRcJk&feature=related 

Metallica - For Whom the Bell Tolls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8BRbM52gpc&feature=related

Metallica - Sad But True

I’m sorry that I haven’t answered my emails in a couple days but I had a nightmare. 

I don’t dream like a normal person does. I dream to the max, like how people in a TV commercial for diet soda are supposed to be living their lives. My dreams are intense - they spin effects on many different levels, somehow they drag in personal emotions from my real life into these spontaneous fictional situations, which are perceived by all my bodily senses.  A maximum dream. Its like I’m briefly visited by Stephen King on his way his from an Apocalyptica concert.  

This dream left me shaking, breathing heavy, unsure about what was real and riddled with anxiety.  I have not left my apt in 2 days, turned on my work phone or eaten anything besides Cheerios.  

I dreamt my cousin, Kristen (nearly my same age, spent much of my life with, who I loved dearly) was dead, her body finally found and returned to the family for proper burial.  When I woke up from the dream I had to stop myself from phoning her to make sure she was still alive. I needed to be sure.  Instead I focussed on taking some deep calming breathes, and calmed down. I checked her facebook page and saw that she was active recently and that reassured me enough to put the phone down. Easy does it. I don’t want them thinking I’m any more crazy than they already do. 

Another reason I wanted to blog about this was because many people fear that manic depressives can not control their impulsivity. This is not true. Yes, it can be a struggle but it can be managed.  I wish that more of my normal friends/clients could control their equally destructive drunken dialing episodes. 

Let me tell you about my dream. I highly recommend that you listen to Metallica’s Black album while you read. I’ve posted some links above if you don’t have it on itunes. 

..................

I had finally taken the vacation of my dreams. I was exploring an island in the South Pacific (I’m not sure which one). I had just returned from a day of tasting exotic fruit and  volcano hiking when I got the phone call that Kristen had been found. Not only had the hope that she would be found alive came to an abrupt and cruel end, but my fantasy vacation had also been robbed from me too. It never rains, it pours. 

In my dream (not in reality), she had been working as a stripper and her disappearance taken as tragic, but not surprising.  Evidently what happened to her was this - she had answered an ad to become a nanny but the person who posted the ad abducted her, tortured her and eventually killer her. Her body was found in a lab much like Josef Mengele must have had.  It was a scene out of an episode of CSI playing out in my dream.  The man responsible was not captured.  It looked like the lab had been abandoned for months. 

When I got home naturally I was upset and had to deal with other stressors in my life. It was a time when I was still at my fathers and before my diagnosis. My stepmother still hated me, and threatened that if I kept crying too much I was going to embarrass her in front of everyone at the funeral.  She pressed my father on how long I would remain a childish burden to them.  I missed Kristen so much it hurt to breathe. 

After the wake, I had to pick up my brother. I was driving an old model station wagon, specifically a 1987 Chevy Celebrity. The kind that families used before the invention of the minivan.  On the way home something grabbed my attention, I saw a man with a necklace that had to be my cousins. I knew it was hers. I just knew it. I had a chain just like it, a long delicate gold chain, with a round pendant scattered with precious gems, diamonds and sapphires. I had the same one and instantly recognized the design, felt the weight of the cool metal against the skin, felt his unease with the trinket, her aura still strong around it.  

For some reason we drove the exact same brown station wagon. I followed him to his new death lab. He kept people in cells and drawers and chains.  Some of the people he had were so starved that they hungrily ate the giant red millipedes he fed them from a brown paper bag.  And they were grateful. Nobody wore anything except for shackles made of brown leather and cool metal.  I left before I could figure out what he was doing with them. I didn’t want him to see me, and I couldn’t be late picking up my brother. All I knew was this was what my cousin had gone through all because she answered an ad because she wanted a job as a nanny because she was tired of the late hours of stripping. And don’t get caught, don’t get noticed, don’t be late. 

I left to go pick up my brother. I didn’t want to tell my father and step-mother because I didn’t think they would believe me. I knew my brother would though and I drove him to the lab.  I don’t remember much more about the dream.  I do have some sense of finality after this last part so I assume that the man was brought to justice.  Its only a dream though, so it doesn’t really matter in the end.   

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I feel like until today my blog has given you just one impression of me. I know this particular blog entry sounds awful, scary and terribly unsexy. Maybe there are some of you who think I may have spoiled BSW’s sexy passionate call girl image by writing it. But I’m all of these things. Its who I am. It was meant to explain, intrigue and help in its own way. 

From the beginning, this blog was meant to help me deal with how bipolar disorder affects my life.  Since this dream affected me and caused my behaviour to change for 2 days it was obviously significant and I needed to think about it.  So it was important to include this entry too.  The BSW blog is primarily for myself, but with the encouragement of a friend I thought that it would also be good to share this with others for its potential to educate, advocate and entertain. I’ve shared my bipolar sandman with you for all these reasons. I hope you can handle it, if not perhaps you should work on building up some inner strength, tougher skin and a broader mind.   Just a suggestion, nothing more. 

I see just as much ugliness in the world as I do beauty. This is probably why I try to focus so much on the goodness and beauty in life, and have chosen a job that can spread pleasure. 

I feel better now.  Writing this out in black and white has helped me digest it and I don’t feel so incapacitated by it anymore.  Its been a couple days. I think I might go for a walk,  have an ice cream and turn my phone back on.