Woke up from a nightmare last night. Middle of the night. My heart was racing. I was horrified. It was raining. I lay there for a time listening to the rain. After awhile I heard hail hitting the roof. There was lightning too. In the dream, I had just killed someone, someone I loved. In the dream, I didn’t feel anything. I killed without remorse. That woke me up, I think. I had been thinking (in the dream) I had no feelings in me, but as I came back into consciousness, I realized I did care, and the horrible reality that I could do something like that terrified me.
Oddly, I can’t remember now who it was I was supposed to have killed. Never saw the face. It was, however, very real, and I was really sure who it was when I woke up, but now I can’t remember for certain. But, I clearly remember coming from behind, strangling her, and burying her. The whole time that was going on, I was aware, in the dream, of my disconnect, of my inability to feel, or care about morality. It was as though I had actually lost all socialization, and had become a serial killer, and without the slightest hint of remorse.
Got up this morning after lying there for hours after that. It was only 6:00 am on a Saturday. I should get more sleep, but I wake up nearly every night, sometimes at 1:30 am, sometimes at 3:30 am, or 4:00, and sometimes I just watch the clock tick off the half hours until it’s time to get up. Made coffee. 
It’s a special blend of mine: I take a can of “Lite” coffee, which already has half the caffeine of regular coffee, and I mix it with a can of decaf coffee. Still I can’t sleep at night. I’ve tried doing without coffee altogether. After the headaches stop, I feel good, but I still can’t sleep right, not even after months without caffeine. I never get 7 or 8 hours sleep anymore. The amount is not always vital, as long as there is some deep sleep involved, but 5 1/2 hours is my longest time spent asleep, with or without coffee. I don’t think it’s enough time to get a good rest. I’d imagine this is why I’ve been so tense, irritable and depressed, but those things affect sleep, so it’s hard to say which came first. Doesn’t matter what time I go to bed, I usually fall asleep right away, but I always wake up long before it’s time to get up. I’ve gone on ten-miles hikes in the mountains, dropped into bed, to sleep, perchance to dream, but still I wake up, sometimes sweating, sometimes with a bad dream chasing me. It’s aging me fast. People used to think I was younger than I was, but now they’re sure I’m older than I am. I have permanent dark circles under my eyes. My hair rapidly turned from salt and pepper to almost all-white, so I dye it now.
Today a rental movie came in the mail: Hancock. I enjoyed it. I even felt some stirrings of emotion at all the appropriate times. Movies somehow do that to me. Hancock, of course is about a guy who happens to have super powers and creates more havoc trying to help than he helps. Not knowing who he is, or where he came from, he stumbles along until people step up to help him straighten out his life. In the end he does OK, and even finds out who he is. Heroic, and a happy ending too.
After the movie, I sat back to daydream, because I always imagine myself in any movie I watch, or any book I read. I became a superhero. I don’t have super strength or the power to fly, or magnetic power, or x-ray vision – none of that. I have the power I’ve always imagined I had, to transport myself instantly anywhere in the world or universe. It’s a dormant power that surfaces when I need it. My step-daughter Maya goes into the hospital soon for brain surgery. The doctors are highly skilled at it, and the danger is not insignificant, but any operation is dangerous, and a brain operation seems more so. 4 1/2 years ago, Maya had her brain opened to remove a tumor, and they got almost all of it. Enough cells remained to regrow, and she had chemotherapy. The chemo didn’t work. She lost all her hair, was sick as a dog, but the tumor actually started growing faster. She had radiation treatments then, and the tumor was “burned” out of her skull. No traces left on MRI, nothing in her blood, nothing in her spinal fluid all this time. Now there’s something there. Could be scar tissue, a common occurrence with radiation treatment. They don’t know. So, they’re going back in to find out.
In my daydream, I get a call from the hospital. She’s just died. I scream, and suddenly I am there, standing by the phone hundreds of miles away. I ask to see her, and I grab her hand, talk to her, tell her to come back, and she does. She’s not dead. She recovers, but I die. It’s a funny-strange scenario, but it actually makes me happy to think I could do that. I’d readily trade places with her now if I could. I don’t want her to suffer through the pain again. I want her to continue enjoying life. She can have mine.
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