The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

9 Weeks 3/14/12

Nine weeks. Here we go.
One more week until our first doctors appointment and we can't wait. It seems like it's been forever, the waiting, the wondering, everyday dragging on longer than the last. Really though, now that I'm just a week away, I realize how time is flying by like it always seems to do. I am really trying to enjoy the extra sleep I'm getting, because I'm so tired that I fall asleep at 7 o'clock. I'm trying to enjoy my many mini meals and all the free time I have to plan them. Instead of hating how sick I feel if I eat a normal sized meal. I have been trying to look at the positive side of everything, and there is always a positive side. Even the fact that I have to wake up to use the bathroom several times a night. I am enjoying remembering my strange and detailed dreams more. Things I miss out on when I sleep through the whole night.

This was not the case in the first few weeks. If I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I immediately thought about how I would NEVER get back to sleep. "Oh great, I'm up now. I'm never going to fall back to sleep. Oh, god. Only 3 more hours and I have to be up for work. I'm going to be such a zombie. Is every night going to be like this for the next eight months? Ah!"

I had to immediately put the brakes on that kind of negative thinking. Add worry, sleep deprivation and pessimism together and you have a equation for some imaginative horror stories. This is not okay. I'd be thinking myself into a frenzy, all from the comfort of my own bed next to my snoozing husband, completely unaware of my developing madness. Not cool. I am in control of this. So what do I do? Instead of panicking when I wake up. I try to think about the dream I was having. I don't look at the clock, I walk to the bathroom in the darkness careful to not trip over any sleeping pets and I immediately return to bed. I roll over so I'm not facing the clock, I smile and try to drift off by thinking about that same dream I was having. Sometimes I even go right back into the sequel.

It seems like pregnancy will be a perfect time for me to practice my lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is where you become aware that you are asleep and dreaming, and then gain control of what happens next in that dream. If you've ever tried this and been successful, you know it can be a lot of fun. It can also be very therapeutic. So now, when I try to doze off after using the bathroom, I remind myself I'm going off to dreamland and I try to imagine something wonderful. More often than not, I drift off into a wonderful place.