IN THE MIND OF ANOTHER
Her death was consuming my mind, ruining my life. I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. My heart felt so heavy it was hard to talk, hard to breathe. I was suffocating. My eyes were bloodshot, burning from the tears that found a permanent home in my eyes. At school, I kept getting accused of being high. "No assholes, I haven't slept in days, and it's exhausting to keep fighting back the tears." I didn't speak (at least not out loud). I'd zone out on people and just let my thoughts run free in my head. It's crazy how much the body and the mind depend on sleep. Without it, I started to become delirious; I felt drunk. Hallucinations took over my mind; anxiety made me feel psychotic. I became so weak it was hard to hold my head up – literally and figuratively. I didn't feel alive anymore. I was only existing. Anything that would have made me laugh before her death, didn't now. The kids in school started acting normal again. They'd make jokes about bullshit and laugh at dumb things. I just sat back and watched. I hated them if they expressed any other emotion other than grief or despair.
It was hard to get back on track with my life after my best friend passed away so suddenly, especially on a Wednesday, a school night, after her soccer game. We aren't one without the other. I kept replaying that night in my mind, trying to figure out what really happened, but every logical answer I came up with still didn't make sense. In the end, she was never going to be around anymore, and I didn't get why. I wanted to sleep so badly, but I was hurting so much. Sleep was becoming my biggest fear and for two reasons: 1. Sleeping was the closest I would ever be to her again without actually being with her, and 2. I didn't want to wake up in the morning and relive all the pain that I had been trying to numb myself from.
My friends and family saw me struggling. I think it's safe to say a piece of me went with her the night she crashed. Everyone was trying to help but nothing worked. Maybe if I wasn't so numb I would have been able to feel all of the love they were trying to give me, and maybe then I would've started to heal. I think my sister was the only one who could understand me. She knew all of the attention would do no good for me. She left her dream catcher on my bed one day with a note attached that said "No nightmares, just dreams." I immediately felt a sense of peace dance throughout my body.
On average, people spend a third of their lives sleeping. It sounds like a lot, however if you think about it, a healthy adult is required to have eight hours of sleep a night in a twenty-four hour time period; the math is simple. Sleep is a necessity to the body. We need it in order to survive just like we need to eat or breathe. Sleeping has been proven to increase people's health. For example, it helps balance a healthy metabolism by stabilizing the level of hormones that affect appetite, which could lead to weight loss or weight gain. Sleeping also allows our brains to rest for a period of time, which increases the brain's tolerance for learning, even affecting memory. However, why does the human body have to literally go unconscious for several hours a night in order to absorb the energy it needs in order to function? Scientists have said that once the mind becomes unconscious, different parts of the body take over, releasing fluids and other activities that pump around the brain to flush and clean out some of the nonsense we pick up throughout the day. In layman's terms, it acts as a biological dishwasher. Everything about a human is related to sleep: metabolism, physiology, digestion, everything.
For years, people have considered sleep to be the cousin of death, simply because it is the only time our mind and body undergoes unconsciousness. What is remarkably interesting about the human body, however, is that even though we believe our minds "turn off" each night, that is when our minds seem to be the most active. Although our nervous system becomes relatively inactive and our muscles become relaxed (which can determine how much damage is done or not done to the body in case of trauma), our minds are still wired to allow us to enter a different state of existence known as dreaming.
However, sleep is not as easy as thought out to be. There are several series of recurring sleep stages that unfold within the action of sleeping. Each stage of sleep plays a different part in preparing a person for the day ahead which is vital to the body and mind.
There are two different types of sleeping. Rapid Eye Movement (REM) which is the state of sleep where you do the most active dreaming. Underneath the eyelids, a person's eyes are rapidly moving back and forth during this stage. Non - REM (NREM) basically consists of the four stages of sleep. Each stage consistently becomes deeper than the last throughout the night. The activity in the brain during REM almost exactly mimics the activity when the brain is awake. There are many popular theories on why we dream. Some say while we sleep the unconscious part of our brain is busy organizing memories and strengthening connections from the day before that we need in the future while getting rid of the junk that would otherwise clog the brain.
The brain simulates feelings we hold, such as anxiety and anger. Through our dreams our minds prepare us in to cope with feelings when we are awake and are in reality. Freud is widely known for his theory on dreams. When Freud began to study the mechanism of dreaming, he concluded that dreams play a crucial role in therapy for each psychoanalyst, and says that, "dreams are even the key to theoretical understanding of subconscious." I can relate to Freud's argument and say that the main concept of dreaming is to withdrawal from reality. Freud's theory indicates that dreams access a part of the mind that the conscious mind is incapable of finding.
I don't remember falling asleep that night but I do remember waking up. I woke up feeling spiritually whole. It took several moments for the reality of my life to settle in but this time I was able to keep strong and hold my shit together. Although my reality made my bones ache, my heart was overwhelmed with a heavenly sense of bliss. Flashes of my dreams began to rush through my mind, new memories of her and I. I enjoyed how peaceful I was when I slept, so I let my head hit the pillow once more and so on and so forth. It was dark, too dark, but the stillness and silence was comforting. I finally felt at peace but the moments would pass too quickly, so I let it become an addiction.
Throughout my dreaming process I received all of the answers, grieving, and comforting that I needed in order to move on with my life. She showed me what happened the night of her crash, explained how everything that happened down on earth is what led up to this very moment. However, the greatest proof of all was that I had an out of body experience (known as astral traveling) where she took me as close to heaven as she could, in order to prove to me that she was okay.
I've learned how to cope with her death. Although there will always be a part of me that'll never be the same again, I'm not numb anymore. Sleeping and dreaming have saved my life. I'm able to function in school and at my job; my mental awareness is more alert and I can get through my days because of the comfort I find in my dreams.
Sarah Domin a senior majoring in English.
