Being Boring About Dreams Again
Aug. 16th, 2023 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinI've been burnt out for a long time. I am not good at task-switching, and that is practically all I've done since finishing colour on Vol.1 back in November 2021. It's a huge drain of mental energy; I can supplement that with willpower, but that is finite as well. When I'm running low on all my reserves I just want to lie in bed and listen to radio documentaries but things still have to get done. Lots of things. All the time. Some quite urgently. And never anything that gives back.
I may be exhausted but at least I can't argue with the general shape of my life, with which I am still well pleased. But the last few weeks have been a drag: first The Shed, then neighbours having my trees whacked; plus I've been shuttling to Scotland and Norfolk and Lancashire. I enjoy travelling, but it is really the epitome of task-switching, and I've come back from each trip drained rather than recharged.
Last night, for the first time in a while, I experienced that familiar feeling of my brain not being able to shut off. Just chatter, chatter, chatter, all the time. Even my habitual barely-audible-Radio-3 didn't help. I've discovered this as a sleep aid in recent months: turn it down just low enough that you have to concentrate to listen, and it's like someone holding your frantic attention's hand, allowing you that little bit of stability to relax and fall asleep. But no, the chatter was sufficient to drown out the peaceful murmuring.
And what did I dream about? Sheds? Neighbours? Workload? Travel? No, I dreamt I had the chance to go back to McMurdo again. It was different, but the same; the main difference was not Covid precautions but that they were being careful about the food, which for some reason was low. I reflected on the benefit of middle age lowering my appetite to practically nothing. My old supervisor was there too, despite having left the USAP; I didn't see her, though, because she was receiving a new batch of AAWs who were arriving on one of two C-17s that day – someone had written a note on the flight listings: "Wow, two flights, so proud!" as if to suggest there were supposed to be two flights a day but this was rarely achieved.
Whatever my subconscious is doing, it doesn't appear to be pulling its weight ...
I may be exhausted but at least I can't argue with the general shape of my life, with which I am still well pleased. But the last few weeks have been a drag: first The Shed, then neighbours having my trees whacked; plus I've been shuttling to Scotland and Norfolk and Lancashire. I enjoy travelling, but it is really the epitome of task-switching, and I've come back from each trip drained rather than recharged.
Last night, for the first time in a while, I experienced that familiar feeling of my brain not being able to shut off. Just chatter, chatter, chatter, all the time. Even my habitual barely-audible-Radio-3 didn't help. I've discovered this as a sleep aid in recent months: turn it down just low enough that you have to concentrate to listen, and it's like someone holding your frantic attention's hand, allowing you that little bit of stability to relax and fall asleep. But no, the chatter was sufficient to drown out the peaceful murmuring.
And what did I dream about? Sheds? Neighbours? Workload? Travel? No, I dreamt I had the chance to go back to McMurdo again. It was different, but the same; the main difference was not Covid precautions but that they were being careful about the food, which for some reason was low. I reflected on the benefit of middle age lowering my appetite to practically nothing. My old supervisor was there too, despite having left the USAP; I didn't see her, though, because she was receiving a new batch of AAWs who were arriving on one of two C-17s that day – someone had written a note on the flight listings: "Wow, two flights, so proud!" as if to suggest there were supposed to be two flights a day but this was rarely achieved.
Whatever my subconscious is doing, it doesn't appear to be pulling its weight ...
