Making Use of Vivid Dreams

It began for me with Sustiva and now continues with Atripla. Although doctors and pharmaceutical companies insist that there are no side effects, those of us on these meds know that vivid dreams are part of the price we pay for remaining undetectable.

At first the dreams were more nightmares, waking me due to their hi-definition intensity. In the early days of diagnosis my emotions were already volatile and the medicated dreams amplified these confused feelings (imagine experiencing random clips of the film, Inception in 3D IMAX every time you shut your eyes). Add to the mix that, as a fiction writer and visual artist, I have a hyperactive imagination anyway. (Even before the meds I dreamt in color and some dreams were vivid enough for me to read writing and numbers within the dreams.)

My doctor was reluctant to change my meds because my body was responding so well to them. My CD4 counts and percentages continued to climb while the viral load stayed below 50. But something needed to be done about getting good nightly rest: the immune system functions more efficiently if we sleep well. Our risk of heart attack and other fatal conditions is known to increase when the quality or the quantity of sleep is deprived.

The solution came almost by accident. I was working on a story for a contest with a tight submission deadline, a story from the viewpoint of a dead mother overseeing her brood in a remote village in 19^th century India. For days I spent practically every waking hour struggling with the characters, editing the prose, or researching the details about that time and place.  Then one night I happened to be working on the story late into the night, even though I was tired and had already taken my meds. When I finally switched off the computer and retired to bed, lo and behold, my dreams were about that ghost mother and her colonial times village in northern India. I could feel the rich embroidery of the fabrics, I could smell the incense and savory cooking. Describing the lives and surroundings of my characters now became very easy.  The story ended up winning the contest, but more importantly, it led me toward an important insight: our dream lives are an exact mirror of our waking lives. In particular, whatever it is we are thinking about in the hour before retreating to bed, those thoughts will surely replay in our dreams.  It felt as though I had discovered a switch, a way to control at least the content of my dreams, if not their intensity.

From then on I made an effort to surround myself with positive thoughts. I avoided watching the TV news in the hour before bedtime. Just I regulated my food diet to nutritious, fresh and wholesome foods, I regulated my mental diet. Gradually the dreams became consistently pleasant, although still intense.

In an effort to tone down the intensity, hence get more restful sleep, I experimented with meditation. There are many varieties of mediations and I am sure each has its place, but the technique I chose was Insight Meditation. This is a technique found in Zen Buddhism as well as Vedanta, the Hindu non-dualistic school of philosophy. The beauty of it is its simplicity. It does not require any special ritual or belief. One does not have to ‘belong’ to any culture or religion to reap its benefit. It asks the student to select a time and place where he can be relatively undisturbed by noise, obligations or distractions. One sits in a comfortable posture on a chair or the floor and with gently closed eyes observes the rhythm of one’s own breathing. This is harder than it sounds and does require practice to master the skill. What I discovered was that when the breathing is observed without anxiety, without the need to act upon it, my rate of thinking slowed naturally.

Once the thinking slows to a trickle, I slide under my duvet and drif off into a gentle, silent sleep.  The dreams are no longer as wild as they once were. And if I do have a vivid dream it is usually very pleasant and joyful. If such a pleasantly vivid dream does wake in the night with its intensity it is with the after taste of bliss.

Over the last two years of using this technique before bedtime, I have discovered others ways of using the intensity of the medication dreams. As Freud and Jung discovered, dreams are missives from deep within the subconscious mind. They hold the key to understanding deep-rooted patterns of behavior which are the skeleton of our character. It occurred to me that these vivid dreams of mine were like psychic MRI. Perhaps I should examine the innards of my personality­­ - the fabulous as well as the damaged. To this end I began maintaining a dream journal, wherein I record particularly vivid dreams.

Upon reviewing the journal it has became obvious there are some common recurring themes and issues. Some of these issues are universal (the fear of death) but others are the residues of personal pain from the past. By observing honestly, without judgment, the contents of these core beliefs, by admitting my regret about past unskillful behavior without self-condemnation, I have discovered it is possible to rewire these destructive habits and painful reflexive behaviors. The simple technique of watching the breathing, and then the flow of thoughts does bring a level of self-acceptance and serenity.

Though I am far from perfect, I have begun the process of healing my psyche; I am a work-in-progress. I have decided that before I die I would like to be whole, integrated. I would like to become a compassionate and self-aware human being. It is impossible for me to heal my physical body of HIV, but it is within my power to heal my spiritual body. It will require effort and time, but my goal is to die peacefully, perhaps leaving behind a legacy of friendship and goodwill among those who knew me. I believe it is possible for anyone to achieve this.

Read more from our guest writer on his own blog here.