Today is day one of my blogging initiative! I’m pretty excited but also a little scared about it. I really want to commit to this and I’m nervous that my busy life will get in the way. My intention is that this blog be part personal journal, part exercise record, and part public inspiration. Hopefully I can hold myself accountable by writing: I will log one entry per day, every day, into oblivion. There! Wrote it, now I will have to do it. So thank you for reading Day One. I hope you enjoy.
I live in Peoria, Illinois with my boyfriend (lets call him Mike) and our two guinea pigs (lets call them Elvis and Stinky Pete because those are their actual names).
^ Elvis
Mike works an amazing 40+ hour a week job at a major machine manufacturing company and I work as the Marketing Manager of a Chiropractic Office. This situation is brand new to us since we moved from Boston mid-June. However, right this second, I’m at home in San Diego for 17 days staying with my parents and two sisters, my brother is studying (and partying) in London at the moment.
^ Boston to Peoria= sweet trip to Niagara Falls
Anyway! I’m not sure if its the added stress of college loans kicking in and me being on vacation or the fact that I’m back under someone else’s roof but I’ve been having some HORRIBLE nightmares. And not just one or two a night but several that wake me up and keep me up. Who wants to go back to sleep after being kidnapped and having their throat slit?? Not me. So began the experiment to end my nightmares without multiple glasses of wine before bed.
Experiment so far: eat dinner very early, around 6pm; then a snack around 8.30pm; a small dessert around 10pm; and then a cup of tea. And definitely only comedy television and absolutely no thriller reading to knock me out. So far, this has resulted in milder nightmares. Instead of dreaming about kidnapping and murder, last night I dreamt that I couldn’t afford clothes in America so I stole a scooter, drove down to Mexico, and went on a shopping spree. There wasn’t any room in the scooter for all my new clothes so I stuffed them all down my pants to drive back to America. I got robbed at the border (which was interesting because the thieves had to reach down my pants) but all the got were a few pairs of new socks. I finally got home safe and sound only to find that, while down there, I had apparently covered my body in trashy tribal tattoos.
That last one was weird but I basically woke up, thought “WHAT THE HELL?” and then went back to sleep. This is progress!
Question: Any ideas for getting rid of nightmares without the aid of alcohol or drugs?
A Happy Lass 
hello, ashley! (super long time no talk or see, but the internet is like that with old old friendships, i suppose.) anywho, glad to see you’re doing well!
answer to your question: LUCID DREAMING! i just listened to this radiolab podcast that was pretty cool, you should give it a listen— http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/jan/23/wake-up-dream/
not that i think you should stop dreaming those dreams, because from the sound of it, your mexico dream seems more hilarious than frightening.
okay, wishing you the best!
-kim
Hey Kim!
Thanks. I’ll definitely check out the podcast. I’ve heard about lucid dreaming and always convinced myself that if I learned to do it I could hook up with Josh Hartnett or something. Haha. Preventing nightmares seems like a much better use of the tool though.
I hope all is well with you. And keep reading! The posts will hopefully only get better.
xoxo
ps. I think of you every time I do my little “&” symbol because I stole it from you. I always loved your handwriting.
Ashly,
I met u at the chiros. So tickled to read your blog. I just love it! I am very immpressed with the way you live. I was active as a kid, well, climbing trees biking etc. but quit when I married and had kids and kinda went to heck 🙂 I am going to try yoga today on dvd. would love to be in a class but this may work. see you later~ Caroline
Caroline!
I’m so glad you stopped by. Hopefully you get a little inspiration from me. Feel free to click the “follow” button the top right of the page to get emails every time I post.
Also, check out this post (https://ahappylass.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/vacation-exercising/). At the end are a bunch of easy, check, quick exercise options. If you decide to open a myyogaonline account, let me know, I’ll email you an invite!
Hope you’re having a great day.
When you sleep, don’t put your hands and arms on your chest and belly. Nightmare is not about the content of your dream, but what do you think about this content. The pressure on you body is not good for your health and make you nervous.
I’ll try this now. I just probably need to relax before I sleep I’ll try the cup of tea before bed and early dinner.
I read that a fellow commenter posted about lucid dreaming. I’ve been able to do lucid dreaming for a couple I years now but some times it doesn’t work. It works inmost cases but sometimes your dream restricts you and you can’t have any control which makes the dream worse. But this was really helpful I’ll try it tonight.
Hey Allyson! I’m really glad it helped. Good luck lady.