Two weeks into Chicago

I remember people asking me where I'm from, and I remember wondering whether I'm from the Greater Boston area, Vermont, Thailand, or Korea. So I tell them I've been in Boston for the past 8 months. The past 8 months! It's hard to believe that my time in Boston has already been "the past 8 months."

D-75 Night Terrors

I recall having several night terrors over the course of the past six-or-so years, and I remember them being absolutely horrible.  The last night terror I had was just a little over a month ago, and it happened on a random night's sleep in my dorm room.  I will recount the story later, as I wanted to highlight a particular story I found online during my search for a possible meaning behind my nightmare.

So, I wake up in my bed (this is at my parents house, a fair few years ago), and I decide I am really, really thirsty. So I head down stairs for a drink. I start walking down stairs, until I hit the 14th step (I'm Autistic and OCD, knowing how many stairs their are is important to me). This was odd because I have 13 steps, so I continue walking. I get to the 42nd step and I notice that I'm now in fact walking up stairs, but in the same direction. Keep in mind, that I am in sleep state, dream state. I'm very susceptible, and rather dim ;D. I continue up these steps, but then I notice that I've been flipped upside down, and I'm walking on my hands, up the stairs. The path spirals, and I feel my self spinning. This scares me a fair bit so... 

I wake up in my bed. Startled and straight up. I look around and I'm relieved I just had a bad dream. I go to put the light on, but it doesn't work. I go to check in my wardrobe for a new light bulb when I look at a loose wire dangling from a shelve. I go to put it up when I notice it's a stretched out face, like in 'The Scream'. I jump back, and feel hands at my spine, I turn and...
I wake up in my bed. By now I'm getting a little worried, so I stay in bed. I hear planes outside. I look outside the window and I see bombs falling. I go to jump out of my bed to warn my family but fall flat on my face, because my legs are chained. I start screaming for my family, when my little brother passes through the closed door, ghost like, grins, and turns into a plane... demon... thing. I hear an explosion, and... well, I feel it, I won't go further into that one...

I wake up in my bed. Screaming this time. My (now ex) Girlfriend is there, and she comforts me. She calms me down after I explain it all and she tells me it's just a bad dream. I'm much calmer now. She kisses me and we get romantically involved. Not to go into too much detail, she's on top (I did say it gets risque). She says something that I know she'd never say, and I realise that she was never in the bed with me, she wasn't sleeping around that night. I tell her this, and this must be another dream, and she stops, dead. Silent. She screams and melts on top of me, her arms in my hands. I scream and...

I wake up, in my bed. By now I've cottoned on to what is happening. I keep screaming and the duvet gets tighter around me. The more I scream the more it does this, whilst figures dance on the ceiling, dangling marionettes and laughing. I sink deep into the bed and...

I wake up, in my bed. It is about here that a lot of the sequences are fuzzy. I remember trying to escape, trying to ignore, laughing it off, none of it to any effect. I remember seeing a lot of figures, and various animals (snakes etc), and some calmer ones like the first ones, where I have to find what's happening. Other than that, not much, until...

I wake up, in my bed. This time I head straight for the door, full speed. I'm getting out. I go to run down the stairs when I see my step dad in front of them, kneeling. I trip on him and fly down the stairs. I try to get up but I'm getting heavier and heavier with each breath. I notice I'm turning into melting rock. I head into the living room and my step dad is there again, kneeling. I go towards him, when I feel something turn me around and push me over him. I look up, and standing over him is something in the shape of a person... the only way I can describe it is a different shape of light... It has a blade for a limb... what I assume is a limb. It raises said limb and...
I wake up, in the living room. My body feels like it's been cut all over, I'm in tears. I fall to the ground and just cry it out (I'm man enough to admit it). I scream, but no one was in the house that night. When I regain my senses, I turn on all the lights, pick up the guitar and play, play the night and day away. I didn't dare sleep for a few days after that one.

One thing I have noticed is the only way I can consistently know if I am in the dream sequence or not, and that is the light. Everything will work normal if I try it (unless it's going to scare the heck out of me), but the light never works. If it is on, it stays on. If it is off, it stays off. Even if it changes anything, it does it wrong(changes colour, or the 'shape'... again not sure how to describe that bit etc). It's really the least scary way I can tell where I am.

Source: MisterA 

D-249 Sometimes

Sometimes before I go to sleep I wish I wouldn't wake up the next morning.

Where is Comfort when you need it most?

D-279 When I was a young man

"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it. And I had love, but I did not feel it. Many decades would pass before I understood the meaning of all three. And now, the twilight of my life, this understanding has passed into contentment.

Love, liberty, and time: once so disposable, are the fuels that drive me forward. And love, most especially, mio caro. For you, our children, our brothers and sisters. And for the vast and wonderful world that gave us life, and keeps us guessing. Endless affection, mia Sofia.

Forever yours,
Ezio Auditore."

D-282 What frightens you? What do you fear?

I was having late-night facetime with a youth pastor that I know from 8 years ago and wanted to share what he told me today. It may or may not apply to you, but read on.

Everyone has fears, hurts and scars from past experiences that we may or may not want to recall from memory.  And those things may affect how we interact with those that are around us - some close, some not so close - and sometimes cause us to become closed, to shy away from becoming emotionally vulnerable towards others.  And there is nothing wrong with that.  There is nothing wrong with being human, being able to feel hurt, and setting up one's own self defense mechanism against possibly risking being hurt again.

Abe, the youth pastor, said the best thing you can do is give your friend a knife and turn your back to him. It's a little morbid and dramatic example, but what he wanted to say was that there is nothing to be gained by not willing to become vulnerable (again) to others.  There is nothing to be gained when you do not invest your own trust in others.  And maybe that friend can reciprocate and be willing to become vulnerable to you as well.  Maybe you can find a brother or a sister in the midst of everything, like a gem in the desert.

One can be lucky and stumble upon such gems/persons, but in almost all cases, you have to be the one knocking on other people's doors, because 99.9% of the time, they won't be knocking on yours (or anyone else's).

But remind yourself that in order to love others, one must love him/herself first.

Our Greatest Fear —Marianne Williamson

it is our light not our darkness that most frightens us

 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

 

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

—Marianne Williamson