I don’t really have anything to say, I just thought typing some things here might help settle my mind and let the dreams come.

Speaking of dreams, in an effort to control, or at the very least, guide the content of my nightmares, I’ve tuned my alarm clock to an ultra-religious AM radio station. This does have an effect, since, lately, I’ve been sleeping through the first 15-20 of my alarm going off anyway, and I tend to hit the snooze button anywhere from 3-8 times before actually getting up.

I’ve read that dreams can occur at any of the different REM stages of sleep, but the ones you remember are more likely to occur in the last stage, so I suppose this makes sense. I didn’t think that such a short period of audible interference would have a drastic effect, but it has. The dreams are neither less frightening nor easier to ignore, of course, but they are… different, and that’s a good thing.

Lately I’ve woken up in the morning fighting desperately with my comforter, literally kicking and punching it as though it were trying to envelope and devour me. I can’t recall this being a residual effect of the dream. It keeps happening, and even when it doesn’t, it’s obvious from my body contortions and intricacy of arrangement in the comforter that some kind of nocturnal struggle has taken place. For a brief, shining moment, I was glad that I sleep alone.

And another odd, sleep-related observation: I’ve begun smothering my cell phone with a pillow. Generally, when I sleep, I sleep on my right side, right arm curled under 2 pillows, sort of hugging a third pillow to my chest. I’ve noticed that in the mornings the pillow I usually hug is always on the floor, which isn’t strange at all, but it ALWAYS covers my cellphone. I’ve tried putting the cellphone in various places on the floor next to my bed; further toward the closet, futher toward the foot of the bed, even on top of the alarm clock - each time I wake up and see the pillow covering it.

This type of behavior is not abnormal for me. I’ll often find myself performing simple rituals before actually waking up, and usually exploring them consciously will be enough to stop them. We’ll see. I’ve done this kind of thing before. For a long time I would consistently wake up exactly 10 minutes before my alarm was set to go off, but only if I was facing the clock. It was as if I was looking at the time while unconscious and deciding to wake up. And when I was a kid, for a while, I’d wake up and unlock the back door. This happened several times until my mom’s best friend had a dream that an intruder entered the house through the unlocked back door and… well, did something terrible. That put an end to that.

It’s a very interesting quirk. They’re almost very small acts of defiance and frustration to give me some hint as to what’s going on behind the curtain. I wouldn’t give them so much thought if they didn’t go away immediately after some revelation or fear has set in.

In other news, I’m unhappy in practically all facets of life. CJ ships off… today? I’m not even sure. And I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel or react. I’m extremely lonely and afraid to do anything to ward off the loneliness. I’m drowning at work, literally drowning. Sometimes I wish I was A Real Person that other Real People took seriously, so I could handle these problems. But I’m just a dumb kid. Oh, and I’m probably going to be moving when my lease is up. I love this house and this city, but I can barely deal with the ghosts here as it is. I can’t bear even the slightest chance of running into more corporeal demons.

I bought a few new shirts. I’ll post them later. I haven’t had the time, energy or inclination to keep my t-shirts page updated.

3:30 now. I guess I’ll try to sleep.