I had a really tough night of sleeping and dreaming last night. And I had a lot of dreams for someone who fell asleep so late and did not sleep that long. I found out when I did a Google search that having more dreams than you would on a regular night of sleeping is actually linked to both sleeping less and depression.

There is so much information on just this aspect within dreams that the three articles below are just a small sample, though definitely some of the best ones:


"In the 1970s, psychologists noted that people suffering from depression also report more dreams than average. In fact, people who are clinically depressed may dream three or four times as much. The quality of REM dreams (also called “paradoxical sleep”) is different too: more intense emotions, more negative themes, more nightmares, and more unpleasant dreams, in general." from:  http://dreamstudies.org/2009/09/15/depression-ssri-and-dreams/


http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/08/dreaming-depression-and-how-sleep-affects-emotions/261051/


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-less-sleep-means-more-dreams/


When I was younger and would go to sleep sad I actually would have beautiful dreams that were so good they made waking up worse instead of better. I never could find a link between the two and, in fact, articles I have found seem to suggest going to sleep sad makes you actually dream sadder. There are so many aspects related to dreaming I want to research and I also have to wonder: do we just have more hope in our hearts when we are younger so that is why we can have such beautiful dreams when we are sad? Is it just a weird fluke? Or is there a part of our brains trying to give us a break, like say...when we are trying to desperately escape our grief?

Right after my grandmother died years ago and for months after she passed away, I would dream she was still alive. There were wonderful dreams...until I woke up and remembered the truth. People experiencing the loss of a loved one often have dreams like this and mention that very brief second between sleep and fully waking where they have forgotten for a second and the dream is lovely...and then everything comes crashing in with remembrance.

I have always found dreams interesting to read about and even enjoyed some of my own dreams and had some amazingly wonderful ones...but the worse the dreams become and the harder they are to deal with, the more I think I would just love nights of no remembering. They say you cannot not dream, that even if you think you did not dream on a certain night, you actually did and are just not remembering. I am starting to think that I kind of envy people who never remember theirs...

from today's New York Times

More times than not, it is so hard to find lovely things in the newspaper but as I was reading today's New York Times I was captivated by how very moving this article and writer are:


I’ve been called an angel more times than I care to admit. That’s what happens when you walk down hospital hallways with a harp and have a job that primarily serves people who are dying.

When I went to school to become a music thanatologist, I was in my early 20s. Patients and families were sometimes surprised when I showed up at their deathbed vigil during my training. The wife of one elderly patient met me at the door and cupped my face with her hands. “You’re so young,” she said. “What are you doing here?” It was the question of my life.

Music thanatologists care for dying patients using harp and vocal music as prescription rather than performance. With the raw materials of music, we offer vigils that are tailored to a patient’s diagnosis, vital signs and responses in the moment. Rather than providing a concert of familiar songs, a music vigil offers a quiet space for reflection, rest and, sometimes, for finding meaning as death approaches. 

You can read more here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/jobs/providing-the-soundtrack-for-lifes-last-moments.html?_r=0

To love someone is madness, to be loved by someone is a gift, loving someone who loves you is a duty, but being loved by someone whom you love is life.--author unknown

 

It is no small comfort to find what you are looking for when you most need it. I think that is why I love books and music so much...because complete strangers and talented writers can so startlingly sum up exactly how and what you are feeling so that what you are thinking and feeling does not stay lodged and uncomfortable in that part of your soul that just cannot be reached sometimes. 

 

Loving someone who doesn't love you back is hell. Don't ever let anyone convince you that you can be happy with someone who doesn't love you. And don't ever love anyone more than he (or she) loves you..author uncertain

I don't know about that last part...not loving anyone more than he or she loves you...I mean, really, how can you help just how much you love someone. Even knowing someone does not love you the same back (or even love you at all) you cannot always control that you still love them anyway...

The Bee Gees wrote (Barry and Robin Gibb) and recorded it originally, but Al sings it best! :)

Sometimes, listening to sad music when you are sad helps and sometimes it only emphasizes everything you are feeling to the point of emotionally strangling you. Today is a day when I not only can handle listening to Karen Carpenter, I find much comfort in her amazing voice. I love how Apple Music can "spotlight" your favorite artists when you open up the "For You" part of the app :) 

Today when I hit "Music" on my iPhone this is what came up and I realized it had been a while since I had listened to the Carpenters. I am trying out iTunes' three month free subscription and so far I am really liking how it works (except for the shuffle issues when you are in your own music library...yikes!)

ODDS and ends...

This is the thing about having been teased a lot in middle school and never having been asked out a lot as a teenager or an adult...you develop this built-in immunity to daydreams and fantastical thinking, you really do. And you just know what your future love life holds (or, rather, does not hold) for you. You become so practical about it all (or, at least, you think you do) that it almost, almost, does not hurt.

There are days I am so very glad I am invisible (so very glad). The more intensely I feel about the person I like, the more I hate myself and the more I realize that my invisibility fits into this somehow...like I am SUPPOSED to be non-existent (in terms of being noticeable or paired off with someone else) because it reminds me (constantly) that I deserve no less (or is it no more?) than no one's love and because it really does make me invisible and irrelevant to anyone else, even to me.

I am not hot and never will be...I think that may be part of why I detest that word so much: "hot." I just so dislike it..to be so dismissive and de-valuing of another person just because they are not physically attractive...and to have "hot or not" lists and countless articles on Yahoo's home page about fashion "crimes" and actresses (never actors!) who dared to go out in public dressed a certain way. So often, the very first thing people ask when someone wants to set them up on a date is: "Is she pretty? Is he good-looking?" It is no wonder there are so many divorces and broken relationships in a society that values looks over personality. How sad it is that people often care more about whether someone else is attractive than whether he or she is a good person and has a big heart :(

I thought that being disqualified for romantic love would be an automatic and strategic defense against pain in that area of my life. But love is not always something we seek nor is it something we always actively do or even want: sometimes, no matter how hard we try not to, we fall in love anyway and with the one person we have no business feeling that way about.


In a side note: I found this online and it is just amazing (and so painfully easy to relate to some of the posts):

http://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be-an-unattractive-woman

This part especially hit me hard:

 Childhood and Youth

This was honestly the hardest. Children can be cruel and overt in their treatment of social misfits. I was teased mercilessly, especially by the attractive "popular kids", on an ongoing basis from as early as first grade.  Here are just a few things that happened to me in grade school and middle school:

• One boy sent me a fake love letter, which I unfortunately believed was true until the punchline was delivered to me in front of a group of other kids.
• My assigned seatmate on the bus made me sit in the aisle because I was "too fat" to sit on the seat, and regularly poured soda into my hair on the 45-minute long drive to school.
• I was only allowed to be friends with other unattractive people, which actually worked out because they were often the nicest and funniest kids. One pretty but awkward girl I was friends with took a chance to promote her social status by ditching me publicly at recess. It made perfect sense; she was too pretty for the ugly kids' group.
• I only got valentine's day cards from the teachers.
• I had crushes on people but knew that I could never be the object of someone else's affection. I went to school dances alone, if at all. I didn't exchange cute "if you like me, check this box" notes. I didn't go to boy/girl parties and giggle about "making out" the next day.
• I learned to be okay with spending a lot of time alone. Being an unattractive girl doesn't just make it hard to get a date. It makes it hard to make friends at all, especially in the tweens when a lot of the other girls are very focused on appearance.

If you have mutually-reciprocated love in your life, never ever forget how lucky the two of you are. :)