Run Dumbass! Run!

Since I started this new life style, I have noticed that I have been dreaming again. There was a while there where my body could not get into REM sleep enough to dream because of what my doctor refers to as "the worst case of Sleep Apnea I have ever come across in my career." Granted he looks like he is twelve and belongs on Scrubs. So I am not sure how to take that, but none the less, I did all the tests and was prescribed a machine that helps me breathe through my nose instead of my mouth while I sleep. It reminds me of SCUBA gear and looks totally ridiculous, but I wore it for a while.
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Now that I am down 20 pounds and eating right, my body seems to be adapting enough to where I don't need the machine. Plus, with the exercise I have started implementing, my body sleeps a lot more soundly. Around the house we call it "Sleeping Like the Dead". My children have inherited it from me, but my poor wife is the lightest sleeper on the planet. You can imagine how much sleep she got when I was snoring so loudly I could vibrate our family pictures off the wall. She describes it as a chainsaw being wielded by a leather faced maniac, ripping through her skull at terminal velocity. She can be a tad dramatic at times, but she has been sleep deprived until recently, so I will cut her some slack.

I laid my head down last night hoping that my newly found dreams would bring some nocturnal adventures of a more erotic kind, and within minutes I was out. Another thing about me that my wife can't stand! The fact that I could fall asleep on a busy airport tarmac in seconds, with planes landing and taking off all around me. What can I say? I like my sleep. Sue me!

From what I remember I went straight into an all too familiar dream. A recurring nightmare I have been having since I was a kid. A dream that I have never really been able to figure out. I'm not a big believer in dream analysis, but after this dream, I had to sit and examine it because the dream had changed. Sure a lot of the elements were still there but it was different in a few areas.

All wanna be shrinks, start taking notes.

When I was a kid the dream started with me, on my Metallic Blue Schwinn Scrambler, riding through the fields behind my school. It is dark but the moon shines bright enough to make seeing the trail fairly easy. Almost as If I was a vampire. The trail is lit up, and I can make out every turn and berm my friends and I had spent our summer days building.

Moving along the trail at a fairly good clip, I can see the school in the distance wrapped in an eerie fog. The school is deserted and I am the only one for miles around. As I ride towards the school, I can feel this presence behind me. I stop my bike and turn to look into what is now pitch black. Suddenly I hear whatever it is, begin to move faster in the darkness. At this point I start to book it to the school.

As I ride faster and faster it gets more and more intense with it's pursuit. I keep moving towards the school but it doesn't seem to be getting any closer. It feels as if I am stuck just spinning my wheels. I eventually make it there after what seems an eternity and I frantically look for safety, the whole time looking back into the blackness that has begun to envelop everything around me. Just when It feels like the entity is about to get me, I wake up! Freaky! I was one jacked up kid, I guess.

While the dream I had last night was not an erotic adventure, it did bring up a few things for me to ponder. From my analysis, I can only gather that it was a dream of encouragement for a future event. It must have been my sub conscious telling me what to do when a certain thing does happen. Let me explain.

Like the dream when I was a kid, I was in a field moving towards a destination. But I was on a flatbed pick-up with several other people. It was dark and the moon shown as bright as my childhood nightmare.

I sat on the back facing forward not really concerned with what was behind me until I felt what I can best describe as an Eeebee Geebee shutter through my body. My mind started to race and I turned suddenly to see a figure in the distance rushing towards me with some sort of implement of death clutched in it's hand. At that moment the truck hits a bump and because I wasn't paying attention and holding on like I should have been, I was thrown from the truck and landed face down on the ground. I had the wind knocked out of me and the truck sped away as I struggled to catch my breath.

I finally got it together enough to realize that the truck looked a pretty good distance from me and I had a manic serial killer right on my heels! (Quick sidebar here. I am pretty sure it is a serial killer in this dream because my wife and I watch those serial killer crime shows constantly.) At this point I knew it was fight or flight, and being severely out psycho'ed by this thing, I decided to high tail it out of there. "Run!" kept skipping through my head.

Have any of you ever had a dream where you were running and it just felt like you were really slow and it took you forever to get there? Well this was like that for a minute and then for some reason that feeling subsided and I was able to haul ass. Not sure if it was the new Chuck Taylor's I was wearing or the fact that I must have found the strength to chase after that truck and get to safety. I was winning! That is until I tripped over the shoe laces of those new Chuck Taylor's and fell flat on my face. i had had it. I couldn't run anymore. The truck looked like it was getting further away and my determination to avoid being run through with an iron hook went right along with it.

I laid there heaving and retching, waiting for the killer to reach me when all of the sudden the truck stopped and i heard people screaming. They must have realized I fell off. All of the sudden I began to have a conversation in my head. " Self!" I said breathless. "Get up and run like hell back to that truck you idiot! There is a serial killer right on your heels you moron! You don't really want your head to be in a jar on his mantle like a hunting trophy do you? Run dumbass! Run!"

I bolted up from the dirt like a zombie released from the grave and hauled ass to the truck. The people on the back of the truck helped me on and the truck lurked forward towards our destination. I was safe! I made it back to the truck. What I didn't realize was that the truck actually stopped and waited for me almost immediately after I fell off. Later one of my companions on the truck told me that I must have lost site of the tail lights because I kept running in every direction trying to find it, but it never moved. Never changed course. It wasn't until I was on the ground and ready to give in that I heard the voices calling to me in the dark. I was just glad that I had stopped long enough to listen.

I woke up in a cold sweat, with my heart racing, feeling like I had done my cardio for the day. As I reflected on it during my bike ride to work, I started putting the pieces of the puzzle together. The big lesson I learned here was this; If I was being chased by a serial killer in real life, I would do everything in my power to get back on that truck no matter how many times I fell off. To keep run like mad towards a better lifestyle will always keep you from losing it completely.

So far my new dietary life has been serial killer free. But I know there will come a day when my luck will run out. It is only a matter of time. When it does, I will do everything I can to get back to the truck and lurk forward towards my destination once again. AND... I will always remember to "Run dumbass! Run!"