Thursday, September 16, 2004

this is getting boring

So for the third night in a row--and the...uh...twentieth? night in the past six months--I woke up at 2 am convinced that there was a big spider six inches from my face. Once again, I turned on all the lights, checked my bed for bugs, and waited for my heartbeat to stop deafening me so that I could go back to sleep. It's happened often enough now that I'm getting good at convincing myself that I was still asleep when I saw the monstrous hairy arthropod: it took me only half an hour to get back to sleep. Also, interestingly, the spiders I'm "seeing" are now just pretty big, whereas the first few that showed up ranged in size from "will suck my eyeballs out without a second thought" to "oh dear Lord I don't want to live in a world that contains critters like that" to "Shelob".

But really, this is all exceedingly vexing. Why should I get so freaked out by dream-spiders when I'm not arachnophobic in waking life? And it's so repetetive. I'm screaming to my brain, "I get it! I know I'm stressed out! Now can't you mix things up a bit? Make me dream of plane crashes, or accidents at chemical plants, or Republicans." But no. Spiders it is.

1 comment:

echo said...

My recurring dream is very similar to yours and contrary to popular belief, with spiders size does seem to be everything.In my dream I am playing in the middle of a room with a little spider but am taken by the hand by a male figure and shown the 'real spider'through the window. And yes you've guessed it , the spider is absolutely huge, and like you I awake shivering in fear. Insightful friends have pointed out that maybe it's all about feeling in control. And that when you are under stress things in life that you may normally be able to deal with suddenly seem bigger,more threatening, and have eight long hairy legs sticking out of them. Other insight seems to suggest it is to do with your sexual relationships, and in particular your power struggles within that relationship. And remember your safe until it starts to build a web around your bed, that's when the trouble really begins!