Games and TV Create Violence

... or, I Had a Bad Dream Last Night.

1. Which title is more "eye-grabbing"? AND
2. Which title is actually more appropriate for this particular post?

*****

Yesterday morning, I put my contacts back on my eyes after several days' rest - my allergies have been horrible, so I've been wearing my glasses (and am wearing them right now) - and then I headed out. I met up with my lovely friend (who I've adopted as another niece) from the studio (I have no idea whether I'm allowed to use her name yet, so I shan't) for brunch and conversation. We were there forever (well, several hours, to be honest), and we had a lovely time.

When I got home, I did some important things in the computer that needed doing. Productivity. YAY.

When Stephen and Geoff got home, we'd all eaten something fairly late in the day, so we didn't have a meal together. This has been a free weekend of HBO and Showtime through DirecTV, so one of the things we'd put in the DVR was the documentary "Going Clear" (about Scientology). We were all interested to see what this documentary had to tell us that we either didn't know before, or that we'd thought we'd known before, or whatever. So we watched it.

I gotta say: Scientology is scary. And sad. And freaky weird. If you're a Scientologist who hasn't been "in" the "church" for long enough to know about Xenu, then you need to see this documentary before you yell at me for my opinion that I just stated. If you're a Scientologist who's been in it forever and are a true believer and can counter my opinion with some truth, then by all means, please comment below with your intelligent debate. If you are not a Scientologist but have any curiosity, like we did, about the truth of this "church", then watch the documentary. But be warned: it's scary, and sad, and freaky weird.

When we finished watching, we all felt a little "dirty", and Geoff decided that the best way for us to wash off that feeling was to go out for PIE. We went on an adventure and did eventually find PIE. We ate it, talked about the doc, and the "church", and what should happen now, and essentially washed off that "dirty" feeling. When we got back home, we all went back online and did the silly things that we do.

One of the silly things that I do is play the computer game

"Minesweeper".

 This is a very old game that I still enjoy, the point of which is to uncover all of the "clear" blocks and at the end, show all of the little black spots that I didn't hit. Played a few games; finished my online silliness; went to bed.

Two hours after I went to bed, I was in a deep, dreaming, mouth wide open and completely dried out state. In my dream, I was wrapping gifts with old wrapping paper that was pretty fragile, so I was trying to be careful not to tear it while wrapping. Then a woman with black spots for eyes took the roll of paper from me and began to bind my arms with it. I wasn't afraid of being bound by old wrapping paper. But I knew that her plan was to take a black Sharpie and blacken my irises... like the mines in Minesweeper. I started screaming "no no no no no no no..." but I couldn't produce a sound that I could hear, so the sleeping me (as opposed to the dreaming me) tried to physically produce a sound that I could hear. My mouth was completely dry, including my vocal cords, so I started flailing and eventually produced the sound that awoke both me and Stephen: "no no no no no no..."

His first reaction to my flailing, of course, was to try to gently wake me by holding me and telling me, "it's okay, I've got you" (or something along those lines). The only problem with that natural reaction was that now the dreaming me is being held by an unseen man who is saying "I've got you". So my flailing and calling out became even more violent. And I think it was my own voice that did eventually wake me.

So when I did awaken, I knew that it was a dream, and that it wasn't real, and that I wasn't in any danger. But my mouth was incredibly dry, so I had to work to moisten it, I had to work to calm my breathing, I had to work to get comfortable in my comfy bed, I had to work to assure Stephen that there was nothing he could do to help me, and I had to work to lie still enough that he could go back to sleep. That was a lot of work at 3:00 in the morning. So I mentally composed this blog post until I could drift back to sleep.

This is the first time I've had what I felt might qualify as "Night Terror" (as an adult). This is the first time (as an adult) I've remembered a dream nine hours later (without having talked about its content to anyone). This is the first time that I'm aware of that I can connect three distinct things from the day before to a violent dream.

If you wear contacts, don't play Minesweeper while watching "Going Clear". Jus' sayin'.