brainjacking

"great job! remember it's chaîné 5-6, renversé on count 7, slide to splits on 8..."

for the past few nights, bad dreams and intrusive thoughts have been hijacking my brain, making sleep a challenge.

in my dreams, though the situation is always different, the premise is always the same -- no one will help me. here are my most recent dreams:

in one, i'm in a greek restaurant, trying to order dinner, but unable to find out if the orzo [i love it with greek yogurt!] has been cooked in animal or veggie stock. the waiter looks puzzled and walks off. no help, so i sit there with no meal while everyone waits, salivating, for me to get served.

in others, i'm being attacked by some kind of normally benign animal. i'm yelling for help, trying to untangle myself to no avail. this emmeffer is biting the shit out of me and people are just walking past, unaffected.

my brainjacking also tends to be of the overachieving kind. the night before last, i was robbed of precious sleep obsessing over an imminent work confrontation. i got all pissy about it, in my mind, plotting my side of the argument. ironically, the matter never came to pass and things ended up going my way.

last night, my brain decides it needs to begin choreographing, so it plays the intro to this piece i'm teaching in august at full volume as it pieces the steps together. then, it says, "let's review -- we want to make sure you don't forget," and then reviews the six eight-counts over and over and over, debugging and making small edits along the way, forcing another review.

these annoyances relegate me to the childhood entity i have been described as by my mother after an attempt at co-sleeping: i become like sleeping with a goat... a choreographing goat, at that. i flop and jab with elbows and knees, braying in frustration.