Into the Arms of Morpheus

I started taking the sleeping pills the doc gave me. I am getting actual sleep that happens at normal bedtime.

They are very mild sleeping pills - Dalmane, but they appear to have done the trick.  I'm kind of excited.  I still wake up around 4am in pain, but I expected that because it's about when the pain pill dose wears off.  I also wake up if I need to turn over, since that actually causes a *different* huge pain too.  I'm still a wreck, but at least now I have a chance to sleep.

Since I can now compare actual sleep and the weird *non-sleep* I was having, there is a enormous difference between the two.  My brain would try to dream, but it would incorporate *awake* items into it.  For instance, if the TV was on, the same program would be playing in my dream.  If the phone would ring, I would have a goofy half asleep phone conversation.  I even sleep-texted an entire conversation about Spongebob Squarepants.  (I have never watched even one episode of Spongebob Squarepants.)

I would dream about people and think they were actually in my living room. (I wondered why the dogs were never upset.) Dreaming about people visiting didn't worry me until I started dreaming about dead people and past events. I didn't realize I had been dreaming until something else would happen to jar me out of it: The IM sound, or a TV commercial, for example.

I hadn't had actual, restful sleep or a normal dream for almost three months.  No wonder I've been such a mess.  I only get one refill, so I can't get overly fond of them (dammit).