Fears

I've never been affected much by irrational fears. As far back as I can remember, there has always been a few people in my life that are. My mother has a sometimes crippling fear of heights....anything higher than the second story gets her into a panic mode. When staying in a hotel, she has to request a floor no higher than the 3rd if she plans on getting any sleep at all. When I planned my wedding in Vegas she was happy to be going out there again after so many years, but while most of us planned plane rides of about 4 hours to get there she was making reservations for an overnight train ride.

Thankfully my father doesn't have any real fears. He's not great on a plane either, but when your first plane ride was compliments of the government because you "won" the draft lottery and were being shipped to Viet Nam, I can see why it might bring back some bad memories. Regardless, my father fights sucks it up and gets on the plane no matter what. Just another reason I am happy to have him as a role model. I know that I was indeed a real winner in the parent lottery.

On the way home from dinner with my parents tonight, I listened to a song that I realized late last night had a LOT of meaning to me recently. I've been enjoying the song the last few months, but last night as I was half listening to it while doing something else, one of the lyrics caught my attention. Then I listened to the rest and had an OMG moment. Had I written a song about what has been going on in my head these last few months, it would have been just like this song.

So tonight I hear this song and another light bulb goes on. The dreams that have been the worst for me the last week or so are very much like the ones Wolverine has in X-Men, as I previously posted, but the strongest link other than the flashback type layout of the dreams is that I am under water for many of the worst parts. I do have somewhat of an irrational fear myself, and that is a fear of drowning.

It's definitely not a fear of water. When I learned to body board as a young teen I became nearly hypothermic because I was in the water long enough to effect my core temperature. And here I thought I was always warmer than the average human. So the fear is more of a suffocation fear, and not a drowning fear, but the easiest place to suffocate is in the water. I know I realized this when I was young. I always loved the water, but there was always that risk there in the back of my head....maybe that's what actually drew me to the water. I don't know.

It took me a long time to properly learn how to swim, but when I made my mind up to do it correctly, I learned to be the strongest swimmer I could possibly be, including how to counteract rip currents and undertow....which came in handy more than once in my life. While on spring break in Daytona Beach during my senior year of high school I took my bodyboard out just before a storm hit. The waves were huge for that part of the Atlantic, and the currents and undertow were pretty extreme. Long story short, I got caught in the undertow after a huge wave broke unexpectedly overtop of me and I was dragged along the sandy bottom for about a minute, after having the wind knocked out of me by the crashing wave.

At first it was sheer terror, but that was very brief. Once I realized the situation, I became very calm and remembered to swim parallel to the shore to break free of the current. My problem after that was summoning the strength to do so after having all my breath and strength sapped from my body as I was slammed from the crest of a 15 foot wave to the bottom of the ocean. I finally clawed and swam my way free of the undertow, grabbed my board, and went for a long walk along the shore. For years, I had a light scar on my shoulder from the sand scraping off my skin as I was dragged further out to sea, but looking now for the first time in a LONG time, I couldn't even tell you which shoulder it was.

Hopefully now that I realize my fear is not of the water itself, my nightmares involving water will be less intense. Hopefully, as I look forward to another night of abbreviated sleep, I will be able to handle them the same way I would handle another run-in with a strong undertow. Be calm, and work your way out of the situation.

I use that mantra in my day-to-day life, why not apply it to my dreams as well?