The Connection Between Nightmares & Author Anxiety

Posted by Sarah on Dec 28, 2011 in Sarah's Corner | 2 comments

This morning I woke up with my leg hanging off the bed, my head resting precariously halfway off my pillow, and that now-familiar “What the fuck am I doing?” feeling knotted up in my stomach. I looked around my bedroom as I stretched with an exaggerated yawn that sounded more like an animal being slaughtered than an actual yawn. The sun poked its rays through my blinds urging me to ‘rise and shine’. Bite me, sun. The sound of my cat crunching on his dry cat food made its way upstairs–apparently my loyal cat abandoned the opportunity to snuggle with me for his food bowl. Everyone has their priorities.

As I began to emerge from my post-sleep fog the events of last night began to come into focus. Well…the events of last night’s dream. It involved a Super Wal-Mart that was more like a Walgreen’s and was housed inside a massive, empty shopping mall structure. If you walked to the right you found yourself in an Italian courtroom. If you walked straight you found yourself in the small Walgreen’s-esque shopping area. The shelves were short and the single cashier was Paris Hilton. She tried to sell me Avon. When I refused she attempted to sell me one of her homemade jewelry pieces. I didn’t want to be rude so I smiled as she insisted that I buy a gold necklace/black bib combo with hefty chunks of turquoise and bells. When I hesitated she looked like she might cry so I lied and said I had a friend in the market for a necklace/bib combo and would gladly snap pictures of her creation to show to said friend. Somewhere between snapping picture #1 and picture #2 she decided it would be best if she modeled the necklace/bib combo topless to show how the bib can act as a shirt. Okay then. I snapped the picture and went on my merry little way. I stopped off at a cafe to hack into an ex-boyfriend’s non-existent blog and post ridiculous things to humiliate him. Then I jetted off to New York City to visit the friend who I said was in the market for a necklace/bib combo. She looked at the pictures and considered purchasing the piece until she found out that it cost $700. We called Paris and informed her that my friend would not be buying the necklace/bib combo. She sounded upset and hung up on us. Mere minutes after hanging up the FBI bust into the apartment and demanded my phone. The FBI agent stood there scrolling through my pictures deleting the ones of Paris, informing me that I was in possession of unauthorized celebrity pictures and would be put on death row. At that point I peed myself and blacked out.

Now I am beginning to wonder if there is a connection between nightmares and bouts with author anxiety. Yesterday was a stressful day filled with author anxiety, and it seems each time I have a crazy nightmare it is preceded by such a day. Perhaps that explains my crazy dreams.

Or maybe it’s just because I fell asleep with CNN on.