I Have An Overactive Imagination

 I’ve been having a lot of nightmares recently. This isn’t abnormal for me. The week before my surgery, I woke up screaming at the top of my lungs. I don’t remember what the dream was, but it surely was due to the fact that I found out I was going to have surgery in a week and a half.

I’ve had nightmares since I was a kid. My dad tells me a regret he has is that he didn’t write down my nightmares. They were full stories with vivid twists and turns.

It’s probably why I don’t sleep well.

The thing about all of my dreams is that they are hyper-realistic. My brain holds so much detail from real life and regurgitates it all back to me at night.

I often wake up from dreams with a warped sense of reality. Did that happen or not?

If I’m worried about something or starting a new job, I will have a nightmare about it. Anything that is the cause of an underlying sense of anxiousness in the daytime will play out through a nightmare.

I feel like so much of my daytime energy is spent having to repress and cognitively counteract those anxieties.

No, your best friends don’t think you’re naïve for thinking that way.

No, you can’t get fired for a student being mean to you.

No, you’re not a bad person for forgetting to message someone on their birthday.

Nighttime is clearly where my anxieties manifest themselves. They come in the shape of recurring nightmares of dogs biting my arm off, walking into rooms of people talking about me behind my back, people forgetting that I exist, waking up late, and everyone in my workplace hating me.

Don’t worry, I’m working through these fears in therapy.

One day, maybe I’ll put this hyperactive imagination to use. Maybe I’ll write a book. Maybe I’ll get to a place where I actually accept my fears and they won’t erupt in my imagination at night.

For now, I’ll just be a gal who can’t sleep well because she has too many nightmares.

- Daniella