Wildest Dreams
Of all the Parkinson's symptoms (and there are plenty to choose from), the one that makes me most uncomfortable is I guess is called REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD). I’ve always called them night terrors. Whatever you call it, it’s when you physically act out your dreams while sleeping. So I was just dreaming about kicking an albatross, and I woke up physically kicking in bed. Now it's not that bad for me since I live alone and the cats have learned not to sleep by my feet, so I'm not in danger of harming anyone with my sleepy violence. But it always unnerves me. The tremors and stiffness of Parkinson's are if not constant then at least regular symptoms. This is only the second RBD occurrence I've had in the last couple month. Of course since I sleep alone, I only know about the vivid dreams that wake me up. Lord only knows what sort of archetypal creatures I'm kicking at in dreams where I don't wake up.
Like many aspects of Parkinson's, the impact these dreams have on me is difficult to explain. Whenever I have one, I can't get back to sleep. I stay awake for at least for a couple hours. At least today I'm trying to be productive and get some writing in.
I think it's the fact that I'm asleep when it happens that makes me so uncomfortable. While I can't control the tremors or stiffness, I'm at least aware of what's going on and can make attempts to compensate by doing things like switching to voice typing or being more deliberate with the way I walk. I can't make those adjustments when I'm asleep. Even my 25 pound weighted blanket isn't enough to hold down my body. I'm at the mercy of my broken brain and I feel completely helpless to do anything about it. And I'm pretty sure the cats don't like it, either.