Watching scary moves can be detrimental to our sleep. Nights when nightmares, demons, or imaginations run wild... Don’t drink a lot before going to bed on those nights… Picture it:
I wake up and need to use the bathroom too badly to ignore it. A nightmare is swimming in my head and there is no moon out tonight – thus it is pitch dark. I don’t dare turn the light on as I could wake someone else up… I’m psyching myself up to put my feet on the floor. Is there something under the bed? The music to “Jaws” suddenly blares in my head, repeating unceasingly, beating its ascending terror-striking tattoo. My feet swing out of the warm covers and hit the cold floor… Nothing happens. “Jaws” suddenly evaporates.
As I tiptoe to the bathroom, there is a flash of light streaming in the window – no, it is not the flashlight of an intruder. Whew. A car is passing by outside. Just as the light swings across the zenith of its arc, a strange form jumps out at me. (No, not literally. It is merely brought to my attention.) My heart is pounding in my chest – a rapid drum beat bound to wake the dead…and scare anyone else up at this time of night. I stand frozen like a startled deer (okay, like a real deer, not one of our city dwellers who aren’t afraid of much). I stare unflinchingly at the dark spot where the strange form had shone briefly in the light, my brain daring my eyes to see in the dark. But no matter how hard I try…I can't see in the dark...and nothing seems to be happening. At least, nothing has grabbed my ankle yet. I am wishing I had grabbed the most necessary tool on the planet at night: a flashlight. Mankind’s greatest invention (so says my brain right now; don’t bother to disagree with it at this moment – it will not cave). Just as I am about to dive for the bathroom door another car gratefully passes outside the window, and I can just make out the terror residing only six feet from me: a teddy bear and a monster truck. Someone had dragged their toys out after bedtime. We will be having a talk in the morning. (At least they didn’t leave it where I would trip over it!) My heartbeat has diminished greatly, so I am able to calmly make it to the bathroom. The normal tasks of using the facilities has chased away all the “monsters” in my head…until I reach for the door handle to go back to bed and instantly ALL the scary characters, disembodied hands, and specters I’ve watched on TV or imagined in my head are outside in the hallway…waiting for me. I know I can’t stay in the bathroom the rest of the night in case someone else needs it – plus I’ll get cold, so I do the bravest thing I’ve ever done…I open the door. There is nothing materializing. I race to my bedroom (without slamming into a wall or anything), dive under the covers and pull them over my head. I am safe at last. And the blankets have even kept a little of the warmth. Sigh. Another nighttime adventure survived.
Be very careful what you watch…and how much you drink at night… Happy New Year!
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