MILITARY AIRSTRIKE ... SORT OF

I haven't been sleeping well lately.  It started with my surgery over a month ago, and recently this restlessness has skirted dangerously close to full-on insomnia.  It doesn't matter if I have everything or nothing on my mind; sleep is fleeting.

I suppose I could connect my sleep patterns with the Super Moon.  Like a crazy person, my full-moon dreams are always more intense and colorful than my half-moon dreams, as any lunatic would expect them to be.  And speaking of lunatics, when we were younger, we were told that the tower high above the old building at the state mental hospital down the street was for the lunatics who preferred baying at the moon over silently moping in partial mental awareness.  Right now, I feel as if I am stuck in that very tower.

When I do finally doze off, the dreams are almost as disturbing as the reality.  Take this morning, for example.  I wake up and realize I have two more hours to sleep.  Most people would jump for joy at that revelation, but I have already had three short-sleep nights this week  I am determined to milk the crap out of the time I have left in my dreamscape.

My dreamscape, however, refuses to cooperate.  Instead of a pleasant nap, I am subjected to House of Horrors.  Well, not exactly "House" and not exactly "Horrors." 

I dream that we are being invaded.  I dream that America is under attack by itself, and the military is sending in serious military airplanes and choppers.  I dream that an airstrike is imminent, and I dream it so realistically that I can hear the jets, see them, smell them, even.  In my dream I am standing in a park, staring at the horde of military machinery roosting at the airport nearby, settling in one after the other and sometimes multiples at a time on separate landing strips.

I wake up in a cold sweat, which sounds like a cliche until it actually happens to you, shocked at the clarity and the details of slumber.  I listen from my bed, listen for the sounds of war, listen for the sounds of airplanes or helicopters above. 

The world is silent.  Even the nearby train tracks sit still in the dawn.

An expert interpreter will tell me that my dream indicates major conflict in my life, but I don't buy it.  I know what the problem is -- too much politics.

Tonight I'm going to attempt to get to bed early.  Of course, that's always my intent and it never turns out the way I plan.  Tonight I am going to really and honestly give myself a break and get some real, deep, dreamless sleep.  If it doesn't work, I'm going to infiltrate my dream's military home base and kick all of their asses for keeping me awake.