Anyone who is familiar with the Master Cleanse or any other form of extreme detox (like not drinking any wine for a whole week) probably knows about purge dreams. As you sleep, and your body starts to break up and release toxins into your system for elimination, these toxins quickly reappear as cravings. So, for example, when I once went on a long fast, I would dream of eating whole cakes - just shoving them in my mouth, one right after another. I would dream of cheese, doughnuts, lasagne, pretty much anything that was incredibly off limits whose memories pervaded my fat cells. I would even wake up with a sudden stab of guilt fearing that I had, in fact, eaten these things and all my hard work was undone.
What really surprised me is the same phenomenon is happening after my celibacy vow. My dreams are literally an orgy of men past, present, and future. There are some surreal changes (no doubt due to my rather off brain chemistry these days). For example, the last crush wore a yellow trenchcoat. My ex-fiance looked fit and tan. An ex who turned out to be gay ... wasn't. So, I wonder if the images were kind of realities plus things I wish they had. Except for the trenchcoat - or maybe still - it was strangely dashing.
So, of course I woke up with the guilt having to have a good talk with myself in the mirror that this is just my mind and my body purging itself of things that had resided there - the operative word being "things." The scary part is that a little bit of the fantasy spilled over into the daytime, which involved some "no!", but also some real sifting of dreams from practicalities. Sadly, not enough time was dedicated to the practicalities (unless you count adding 100 more books to your "to read" list on goodreads, officially outweighing number of books you have recorded as "read"). But the one tiny revelation to take away from all of this is that the blips of fantasy were contained in a vacuum - they were fantasies that have no shot at coming true. So, if they were enjoyed, it was with that idea in mind, kind of like the way you enjoy the plot of a book as an observer - being okay with it not happening to you. (Although the Twilight series seems to buck this theory, and so I am avoiding it.)
Still, the run is starting to take its toll a little bit. I am not lonely, and I still have that damned Dubliners to finish (almost by god, almost). I ran a very good tempo pace of 8:17 / mile today even if I did not feel great afterward. I had lunch with friends where boy intrigues were mostly not discussed, except for some talk of using turkey baster to impregnate inveterately single self which made me smile. And I realized my life celibate is kind of like my life with boys, except a tiny bit more stable. The problem is, if you're a thrillseeker like me, stability can feel like unhappiness because there's no rushes of good and bad. It's the same reason that bipolar people go off their meds (guilty), because mania can be the most magnificent feeling in the world - until, of course, you have to pay to play by studying the pattern of your carpet inches away from your nose where you have been lying for two days straight summoning the will to live. Sadly, I do not exaggerate.
So, maybe the purging is my body's way of letting me know that actual stability - that is, the kind that doesn't still have these haunting desires and obssessions around - might be better. It promises an everyday where I am functional, and escapes that are healthy. Did a movie ever tear you to emotional shreds? Okay, maybe Irreversible (which I wish I could reverse having ever watched) did, but I mean something affecting your actual life, your everyday functioning, your other goals?
Keep purging brain. I'll learn to keep the good and dismiss the bad eventually.
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