I should be sleeping.

I should at least be in bed, trying to sleep.

I should.

So, I’ve decided to get off the Lunesta I’ve been taking forever. I think the side-effects are causing some of the recurring, chronic medical problem things I’ve also been dealing with forever. I don’t know for sure, but I aim to find out.

So, I went browsing for info on withdrawal effects from Lunesta on the web, and I found the following:

What drug(s) may interact with Eszopiclone?
•caffeine
•flumazenil
•certain antidepressants, like citalopram, fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, or sertraline
•medications for fungal infections, like ketoconazole, fluconazole, or itraconazole
•some medicines used to treat HIV infection or AIDS, like ritonavir
•St. John’s wort

Notice that last one?
St John’s Wort?

Yeah, I’ve been taking that nightly along with my Lunesta for 5 to 6 months now.
That’s a lot of doses of drug interactions.

What’s worse is that I cannot find how Lunesta and SJW behave when mixed. Did I cause myself irreparable damage?

Sucks to be me.

Regardless, I’ve been planning on making an appointment with the sleep clinic. There’s one just down the road. I tried to call to set up an appointment today, but I got stuck in phone menu press 2 for english hell. I’ll call back tomorrow and ask about the contraindications of the interactions.

Sucks to be me sometimes.

I think I’m going to go get something to eat. I’m hungry.

And her eyes. I cannot say what color Lenore Beadsman’s eyes are; I cannot look at them; they are the sun to me.

They are blue.

– From The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace

Sudden and fully engulfing rage.

For about 45 seconds today, I was literally blind with rage directed at a co-worker that I usually am fond of, for the most part.

Good thing the rage blindness prevented me from seeing the knife that a different co-worker was offering me. God knows that I wanted to use it.

This not-smoking thing is a fucking trip.

In a row. One after another.

Seriously. I’m going through SERIOUS mood swings.

I think it’s related to the quitting smoking thing.

Oh yeah. I’m quitting smoking. It’s been 7 days since my last full cigarrette and 2-3 days since I ingested any nicotine at all.

So far it’s going smoothly enough. There are times when I want to smoke, sure, but it’s no big deal. I can handle it. The worst cravings, though, come after I finish a big meal… especially lunch. I think it’s one of those psychological things that may never go away… not really.

Yeah. So I’m taking Chantix, which is a prescription drug that is helping me to not smoke no more.
I’m pretty sure the drug is also what is behind my dreams. It’s causing me to dream.

[Read previous posts about how I don’t dream]

I don’t really like this whole dreaming thing. I never did. It’s no good. It is Satan pathway in to your mind.

Here is what I wrote in my ThoughtBlot (TM Pending) upon waking up today:

I’ve been dreaming a lot lately. What the fuck is up with that? Tonight I explored alien ruins, fought aliens, and my dog got a cell phone.
There was much more, but I’m already getting hazy
Oh. And I was at the nude beach too.

What sense does that make to you? To me, it’s some pretty sick fucked up shit. Seriously?!?! A dog with a cell phone?

I wake up disoriented and confused and unhappy when I dream.

But anyway… the mood swings.

(Aside: I should be in bed and asleep long before now)

Yeah. So I’ve had high highs and low low low lows this weekend. Friday was pretty good, but then again, I did end up drunk and have a horrible hang-over on Saturday. Saturday would have been a near perfect day if not for the hangover. I was, I think, truly happy and exuberant that I was alive. Sunday spiraled slowly from a feeling of almost invincibleness to a feeling of utter uselessness to being jolted suddenly to a state of pure hysterical laughter, followed by a cliff-dive in to unhappiness. Monday was a bad bad day.

But today… today was Tuesday. Not mind blowingly good… not too horribly bad.

God damn! This is some of the worst goddamn soft-core porn I’ve seen in my life. I totally need to change the channel, but that would delay me from finishing this and thus from going to bed.

I need to start thinking hard about what I really want out of this whole acting thing I’ve been doing. I honestly believe that I could be good at it. I’m supposedly going to be auditioned for a super-low-budget movie being made in town, but that would be pretty far off. I know a lot of people, suddenly, in the Austin improv comedy scene. I think I could be at least decent with that too. It all depends on how I want to focus my time.
I have thinking to do, but fortunately I don’t have to make a decision just as of yet.

But for now, for a little while at least, I am classless (in the no more acting class sort of way).

Maybe I should just start my improv troupe… I already have the perfect name. I’ll find some people and it will all work out. I think the 30 or so troupes in Austin are 1 too few.

We’ll see how it goes.

At least I should hopefully get my car back tomorrow.

For a good while now, my insomnia has been neatly controlled by pills and a strict regiment. Don’t get me wrong… it never went away, it was just managed.

However, now, my insomnia doesn’t want to play nice. Nor does it want to play evil. It just wants to play.

There are many many types of insomnia that effect different people in lots and lots of ways. Insomnia goes through fazes. It changes. Mutates over time.

My favorite, and the worst insomnia, is the wake-dreaming. That’s what happens when the opposite of the norm occurs. You see, normally, when I sleep, I don’t dream. I don’t believe my brain goes in to proper REM patterning in the brain to even allow sleep to occur. And, if anyone tells you that EVERYBODY dreams EVERY TIME they sleep, they are COMPLETELY FULL of SHIT. The normal laws go out the windows when dealing with an insomniac.

So that’s the norm…. sleep with no dream. At least it is for me. When I’m not taking sleep meds. Meds definitely increase the chances of dreaming and one made me had really vivid dreams that burned in my brain. That was an interesting drug that really really sucked. But I digress…

Wake-Dreaming (it’s my term I invented. don’t know what the scientists would call it), is, from what I have gathered myself with no clinical evidence to back up my belief, when my brain goes directly in to the REM pattern, completely bypassing the other stages of sleep. I’m still awake, and only slightly paralyzed. I’m aware, should I choose to be, of both worlds around me. My brain can be confused by the duplicate signals pushed in its face, but it is what it is. I’m awake, and I’m dreaming.

Now don’t think for a second that what I’m describing here is a simple daydream. I’m talking full on, total immersion dreaming. Also, don’t confuse this for a lucid dream in which I am just aware that I’m dreaming, etc… Nope. I’m awake and am familiar with my surroundings of where I am. I’m not sure if I could “wake” myself from the dream, but I could certainly sit up in bed and flip through the channels on the tv, with a little difficulty, but it would be doable.
This wake-sleep happens sparingly, the last time last week or so, and hasn’t occurred prior in maybe 2 months.

It’s interesting to say the least.

But I digressed too much already. Probably a symptom of the sleeping pill.

I shouldn’t be updating the blog, but that’s the whole point. That’s the insomnia I have now. The wanderlust insomnia. The type where you need to be distracted. Your brain is telling you that sleep is too boring… go put on a dvd, or go write a blog, or play minesweeper for hours on end. Do SOMETHING. And so here I am.

It’s one of the more pleasant types of insomnia, because at least you’re occupied as your brain turns to jelly from lack of sleep.

The kind of insomnia where you just lay in bed and your brain keeps trying to trick you into believing that it has something important to say so you gotta stay awake so that you don’t miss out on the very importing nothing, that is, in my opinion, the worst form of insomnia. Your mind is racing, but going nowhere. All the zig-zagging in the brain just makes you more tired, but keeps you more awake at the same time.

You folks who sleep well don’t know how well you have it.

But I can’t complain too much. Insomnia helped make me in to who I am today. If I wasn’t an insomniac, I would be dead and there would be a different Matt Printz walking around the world with a different job and different friends and having a different life altogether.

It may sound weird to hear, but I believe it to be true.

And I actually like who I turned out to be.

And if what I wrote here made you concerned for me, just remember that no dreams are better than bad dreams.