Sirus Widenhouse

Carnival

Lauren Victorie Lafaille

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Aspect Nightmares

Sirus Widenhouse

1

“If you don’t want nightmares, then don’t eat before you go to bed.” At least, that’s what I remember being told as a kid. Maybe it was based in truth, where some white coat conducted a study with fifty kids. The results of that test were probably told and retold by mothers that just wanted to get some sleep of their own before having to wake up into their daily routine hell again. I just want to get a good six hours of recharge before I’m forced online again. Or rather, I just want to fall asleep without the hours of lying awake thinking about her. It’s been six months, and I’ve never known anyone the same way. Maybe I’ll never know anyone the same way. Of course, it was always going to be easier in hindsight. You never really know what you have until you don’t anymore. Well, not at first, but slowly. The ache of something missing. Some part of you rubbed off. That study, it was told and retold until it barely resembled the original experiment in the first place. Maybe the people you meet are just telling and retelling themselves. To someone new, you could be anyone.

2

My doctor tells me that I can’t die from insomnia. Maybe that’s the problem-not insomnia but heartbreak. But my doctor, she won’t acknowledge that my condition is a mental one. She tells me to chew some valerian root and get more exercise. My personal theory is that the part of me that rubbed off, the part that I feel missing, it rubbed off onto her. Maybe while I was actually sleeping, but maybe not. What I do know is that I never

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had an issue falling asleep until she ended it. Now the nightmare is the lying awake, hoping that my mind will go blank enough for long enough to pass into unconsciousness. The problem is, it’s impossible to fall asleep if you’re actively trying to fall asleep. To forget the day. The past month. The past six months.

3

Whenever I used to get an idea, typically for writing into something I would never make, I used to type it up on my phone’s notepad. These weren’t very long in form, either a small joke that I came up with or an idea for a movie scene. Jokes like: “Are you sir, religious… in any way?” “Yessir, I’m a pedestrian.” More often than not, these ideas were the result of smoking too much weed and not being able to properly convey my thoughts because of it. Without context, most of my little blurbs lost their punch. Now I scroll through the list and wonder what I was thinking, but that’s the fun right? I’ll never remember what my train of thought was a whole year and a half ago. She used to say, “The future you have, tomorrow, won’t be the same future you had, yesterday.” I liked that quote. I wrote it down on my notepad to remember. I found out later it was from a movie.

4

My older brother told me he had never had trouble sleeping; instead he experienced reoccurring sleep paralysis. It’s a phenomenon in which your brain wakes up before your body. The victim usually feels trapped, unable to move, unable to see, and unable to feel, but they are very awake. The experience is surreal. To this day, I’ve only had this happen to me once. He said he got used to it after a while. It typically doesn’t last for more than a few minutes, but those few minutes were ter-

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rifying. Like being in a coma. A hibernation. He said sometimes he could feel some figure standing over him. Not doing anything, just observing. The feeling of being watched. He used these episodes to inspire his final art show, to achieve a bachelor’s in photography. Another thing. That time I got sleep paralysis, I had drifted asleep next to her. And another. I woke up shivering and drenched in sweat with her freckled, concerned face looking back down at me.

5

My lack of sleep was beginning to become a problem. I grew dark circles under my eyes. My clothes took longer and longer to get washed. I got into the habit of smoking myself to sleep at night and drinking myself awake the following morning. I told her once that I didn’t like being sober. I meant it as a joke, but the look she gave said that she didn’t find it the least bit funny. Now that I don’t have a person anymore, no one to cry to or to laugh at or to sleep with, I can’t see myself just “moving on.” According to another one of those regurgitated studies, it takes an average of two years to get over your ex. I kept thinking to myself after reading this figure: “who did they profile for this study?” “how can you conjure up a number out of something so per-

sonal?”

“and how do you really know if you’re ‘over it’ yet?” Before the breakup, I thought about the world as it occurred, moment to moment. Whenever she got irritated, I would ask myself what I did wrong. “What could I do better next time?” After the breakup I knew how wrong I had been. It wasn’t about me. It had never been about me. Her inner monologue was so reactionary that she didn’t need a doctor to know she had Attention Deficit Disorder – jargon for “Her brain works faster than she can

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literally control it.” All those times that she blew up, it wasn’t my fault; I was just there for her to react to. The last real conversation we had, she was telling me how she had gone back through my Spotify and how much she missed my music. She had never liked my music when we were together. It was only after not talking to me for months that she needed to fill that ache in her gut. The last real conversation we had was lukewarm at best.

6

I suppose that it was ultimately a good thing, what happened to me. That initial thrill of the first kiss outside the Happy Death Day theater will only be a lasting teenage memory. The wonder and excitement of what that person could be is more intoxicating than what they will be. It’s almost as if by not knowing them, they’re more interesting. Like if you don’t know someone, they could be anyone. I wonder if people retell themselves, just like those studies conducted by med school students. Designed to be told and retold until it becomes a wives' tale. Like an adult game of telephone. In reality, it’s low blood sugar that typically induces nightmares, particularly in small children. Those doctors call it hypoglycemia. That’s why the nurse gives you a cookie after you donate blood; without normal blood sugar levels, you could easily pass out trying to stand up from the chair. Typical symptoms include anxiety, sweat or clamminess, confusion, irritability and feeling lightheaded. Another symptom of hypoglycemia is the slight alteration brain chemistry. This is what some doctors believe causes the occurrence of strange dreams. As it turns out, it's not eating that is linked to nightmares. I don’t remember my dreams. I’ve tried the whole “dream journal” thing where you write down as much as you can remember the second you wake up. The problem is, I always find myself in mid dream. The minute I realize that what I’m experiencing isn’t real, I jerk awake. My brain then

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