Dreams of the Alcoholic…

I had someone I’ve met through the blog send me a note asking if I ever dream of drinking. She said she’s been thinking of dreams lately – can’t get it out of her mind: dreams while she was drinking, sober dreams and dreams of drinking (the scariest kind she says).

Now I can’t get it out of my mind.

When I close my eyes I see tunnels. Square, black, corrugated, industrial tunnels. Now that I’m thinking of it, I have not remembered my dreams at all since I quit drinking. Over a year of dreaming doldrums while for the first time in my life I sleep for seven, even eight hours without interruption.

There is a lot written about alcoholics and dreaming…

…but I didn’t find anything about alcohol recovery and lack of dreams.

According to Los Angeles-based psychologist and addiction specialist Melody Anderson, drinking dreams are a natural part of the anxieties that come along with being sober. “They’re like those dreams where you’re back in the test hall in high school and can’t remember anything,” she says. To Anderson, they’re about losing control. “They’re a sign of the battle sober people have with admitting complete powerlessness over alcohol or drugs,” she says.

I almost wish I had drinking dreams…

I felt the need to know why I have not been dreaming, so I did what one should never do – I went to the internet and asked, “Why don’t I dream?”

Yahoo Answers “best answer” was: …there’s something in dreams that you’re very carefully avoiding. You wouldn’t probably be conscious of this – it happens unconsciously. Perhaps the mind is frightened of what’s in the dreams and in this case the dreams are TOO energetic – and they don’t come into consciousness. 

Oh boy. Maybe there’s a real horror show going on it my head every night and it’s too energetic for my conscious mind to process…

Maybe those tunnels I see are filled with cloaked specters and long shadows.

Maybe in my dreams I’m boozing it up like mad…