on sleep and dreams
Thanksgiving has come and gone, I hope yours was as good as mine. I took the day off from life and went to the movies and did absolutely nothing. Today I want to talk about that I have noticed a tendency over the last couple of weeks to sleep a bit more than usual.
Nothing wrong with that, in and if itself. I find myself sleeping closer to 8 hours on average rather than the 6.5 to 7 I’ve become accustomed to. I think it may be my diet, I haven’t been following my raw food diet at all lately, and I’m feeling it. I crash energetically after lunch, fall asleep not long after supper… it’s just not a good thing. Lots of empty calories, offset only by the fact that I’m back in jujitsu class.
That’s not the only unusual thing though. Normally I have one dream a night - or at least I only remember having one dream a night, the one right before I wake up. But not lately. Lately I wake up several times during the night, and almost every time I wake up, I remember I had a dream, even if I don’t always remember what it was about. You may say that I’m just becoming more sensitive, or remembering my dream state better than usual, but the fact is, I haven’t remembered multiple dreams at night in a very long time, if ever.
Which makes me wonder: is there something else going on besides just dreaming? I can’t help but wonder if all the dreams are a result of some sort of reprogramming for my brain? I know that dreams are a way of coping with the events and information of the day; but I can’t explain the sudden increase in the number of dreams. I haven’t suddenly taken in a large amount of information that needs to be assimilated, so why the sudden increase in dream activity?
It’s possible that it could be related to my newly formulated ambitions: to get my black belt next year, to complete the first draft of one book and the second of another, and to take the second module of seifukujitsu. That’s a LOT of work. I don’t know that there’s enough time to complete it all, but I’m going to give it a try.
That said, it may be that my increase in dreams is related to my steady return to the dojo, where I have managed to make every class but one since the fall clinic 3 weeks ago. I do know that at least a few of them have revolved around the school, so it may be my mind’s way of assimilating what my body is trying to learn again.
Whatever the reason, I can point to at least one effect: when my mind isn’t clouded with the results of my recently poor eating habits, I feel sharper, more awake, more energetic than I have in a while. With what’s to come, I’ll need it.