I keep having a nightmare where I’m murdering someone with a rock…

Sweat drips from my brow with a steady trickle. My muscles ache and tense, like boulders trying to protrude from my skin. I claw at the large rock trying to get a good grip. Its rough and uneven surface is hard to grab, but I tense my finger and painfully dig my fingernails in its rough stone, like an animal clawing at the ground trying to stay put.

I smash the stone down, blow after blow. Through the darkness only the crimson red blood splatter splashing my face like ocean spray is visible. Each strike makes my arms sore, and shoulders feel painfully disjointed. It’s as if they are about to come loose. I feel and hear the target beneath me turn to mush. Like a child’s slime being pushed into its container it gives way with a satisfying squishy sound.

Amidst the blood-splatter across my face I lick my lips, only instead of the rusty taste of blood I’m greeted with the salty taste of my own sweat. I sit up in my bed, arms tense and in pain. I’m lost reveling at the realness of it all. The same dream has been plaguing me for what seems like an eternity.

Sleepless nights and another job lost have brought me here.

I’m recounting my guilty nightmare to her. Her name is Jennifer Martinez. The renowned psychologist sits on her leather chair glaring at me through red spectacles. Her look surgical and piercing, and under it all just a touch of empathy. Her hair looks like silk, and her large eyes fill my being with a sense of desire. In another timeline she’s mine, I can see it in her eyes.

I sit back on the long cushiony sofa, its fuzzy material tickles through my tee-shirt, as the woman bats off a plethora of random questions. I don’t really pay attention to what she says, but by the end of the ordeal my eyes are watering. I’ve lost track of the interaction, but I’m overtaken by my vulnerability to the attractive woman before me.

She jots down some notes, and writes me a prescription for some medication that should help me sleep. “Same time next Thursday..” She says in a soft but stern voice as schedules me for another appointment. I nod and snatch up the prescription. My head hangs low and shakes in disappointment as I exit her office.

Disgust and shame fill my belly like a greasy meal that won’t digest as I head home. I mean look at me 35 in therapy, hypnosis, and now on sleep meds. I’ve become a typical movie character, a mess of man. Certainly not one my father would be proud of. “Just man up, deal with it all, and do what you have to do.” He’d say in a stern voice, expecting me to follow his example.

I try to do just that. Go on living each day regardless of what life has served me or chooses to throw at me. Only the endless nightmares and broken sleep have made it hard. Even today as I reach the subway exhaustion clutches me in its grasp, as if the sandman was a demon trying to squeeze the very life out of me.

You see on nights where I experience these night terrors as Jennifer calls them I become so ensnared in the realism of the dream that it’s as if I haven’t slept. Everything in the dream feels reals from aching muscles to injuries it all just seems real, and by the time I awake it’s as if I hadn’t slept at all.

It’s like this most nights to be honest, and rare nights of sleep usually come from alcohol induced blackouts.

It’s been a two weeks since I’ve touched a bottle, two weeks since I’ve experienced the rest that comes from the nothingness of a blackout. So in that time exhaustion has clung upon me like a swarm of leeches sucking the life out of my core.

By the time I find my train, my visions blurred to that of an old buffering image, and the masses around me have become a sea of faceless zombies. Their chatter a strange indistinguishable dialect that sounds like a horrid chorus or cacophony from a scary movie where I had entered some dimension I don’t belong.

The A train glistened as a beacon of hope as my eyelids grew heavy. I found a somewhat quiet corner and nestled up, waiting for my stop. Jennifer had called in my Ambien prescription after our appointment and I couldn’t help but feel overcome by a deep eagerness for a long dark sleep with no dreams or distractions.

Not two stops in I could feel my eyelids grow heavy and slam shut like garage doors. I’m there again in the dark. Sweat dripping, slamming that damn rock down. Blood splatters, a face turns to pulp, what have I done.

Ding the sound echoes through my skull. “Next stop 145th and St Nicholas ave.” The monotone train calls out, just as the skull beneath me gives way and turns to mush. I’m stirred from my nightmare and shuffle past the zombies to the surface.

“Ding” My iPhone chimes with an incoming text that brings a smile to drained face. My Ambien prescription is ready. I pray that’s it’s the solution I’ve longed for, I just want to sleep, I just want to be normal.

The walk to my corner pharmacy is a scene out of a horror story. Pale ghost faces scamper around me, a cacophony of indistinguishable chatter is my orchestra, but finally I arrive at the pharmacy. I pay my copay and pop 2 pills as I exit the pharmacy door. Maybe finally I can sleep a dreamless slumber I think to myself as I walk out the pharmacy.

I have an interview tomorrow. 11am maybe with the pills I can sleep and proceed to my interview and live a normal life. These are my thoughts as I make my way into my apartment and kick off my shoes.

I feel strange as I lay in my bed and toss and turn. A sense of dejavu and dread overcome me, but soon the sandman takes me into his slender grasp.

Blackness, darkness finally consume me. Finally a good nights sleep. Finally no nightmares. I don’t even hear the alarm clock go off. By the time I open my crust welded eyes and glance at the clock it’s 2:00pm. I’ve missed my interview, but at least I’ve had a dreamless sleep.

I jump from my bed still feeling lethargic and like the sandman was pulling me down. I try to do some pushups. One, two, three, four, on the fourth I collapse. Hunger and weakness consume me like a wild beast.

I open my fridge and grab a few slices of ham and cheese. Too lazy to make a sandwich I toss them in mouth and let them mix into a pleasant mush. I debate how to spend my day and then glance at the counter. I’m still tired and have so much lost sleep to make up for.

“Fuck it. I tell myself as I swallow 3 more pills and make my way to the bed. I fall down like a sack of cement. I stare at the ceiling for a few moments, then feel myself lifted again into sandman’s arms. The darkness consumes me this time, and I’m lost. Even when I wake it’s easy to be pulled back into the darkness, and go back into my slumber.

When I wake it’s 5pm Saturday night. Today I’m determined to get back to normalcy, so I jump in the shower and head out to the city. I swallow down a couple of slices of pizza at my favorite pizza joint, then make my way to a local dive bar. The smell of Tequila tugs at my insides making me want to vomit but I fight the feeling in hopes that maybe tonight’s the night I meet someone special.

I drink some beers, and let the hours pass, as I people watch. I feel like I’m on the outside looking into a slow globe of sorts staring at beautiful foreign creatures with whom I can’t interact. I wonder if it’s the Ambien that has me feeling so detached or something more. I’ve felt like this before, but today I’m not sure the cause. Finally after a few hours of watching the beautiful laughing, loud, obnoxious drunkards I make my way home. It’s almost 1am and I have no clue what to do. I turn on my PlayStation for a bit, but it doesn’t satisfy me tonight either. Finally I decide it best to pop another couple of Ambien and sleep. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up refreshed and ready to normalize my life.

A few Ambien and I find darkness, only this time it doesn’t last. Somewhere in the middle of the night I feel the sticky sweat on my skin. I feel the pain of my lifting nails as I clutch the rock with all my might. This time though the dream is different. As I’m about to smash down I see his face. My great grandfather smiling a twisted smile. I hear his crackling laugh. I crash the rock down as hard as I can. “Splat.” Again and again I smash the rock into his face till I feel brains splatter like contents from a blender that’s been turned on without a lid.

My body is moist with sweat, my heart racing. “Fuck this wasn’t supposed to happen.” The Ambien was supposed to help. I take a shower and wonder why I had my nightmare. Why was it different this time.

I watch a movie and feel exhaustion set in again. I just want to sleep to be normal. I reach for the bottle. It’s Sunday. Maybe if I take more I can sleep and wake up for a normal Monday I think to myself.

I pop five pills and toss myself into sweaty satin sheets. A half hour later the sandman’s darkness finds me. Blackness at first, I think I’ve found peace. Then it happens. I’m back holding that rock. Looking at his evil twisted grinning face. My fingers ache. “Want some sausage, give me your sausage, let’s make breaks?” He says with an evil heckle. I’m about to smash the rock down when I hear a low creak and see light break in from the corner. My dad opens the door and pops in. “Stop it. Just be a man and forget about it. You don’t have to see him again. Real men don’t react.”

I shout and drop the rock and feel my body convulse on my soft Tempurpedic mattress. Tears fill my eyes like soldiers dead bodies litter a battle field. I just want to sleep, I just want to be normal, I just want darkness I think to myself as I make my way to the kitchen.

I pop open the pill bottle and pour all the remaining pills in my mouth and wash them down with a bottle of vodka for good measure. I stumble to my bed fighting vomit, as I fall into my bed. As I close my eyes I think to myself, I just want to sleep, I just want to be normal. Why can’t I be a man, real men don’t react.