Sweet Dreams

I recently began taking melatonin on and off to battle insomnia. It works very well from me with only one side effect: increased dream activity.

I should note that I am on 2 other medications that have been known to increase dream activity in rare cases, but I have been on them since August. My usage of melatonin has only began recently as have my bizarre dreams.

Last night there were two dreams. Both horrified me while they were in progress, but when I woke up, I was able to laugh at one of them just a little, but definitely not the other.

First, the one I can laugh at. Has anyone ever played the video game MAXIMUM CARNAGE for the Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo? I was in this game, kind of. Carnage (for those you don't know he is a red villain from the Spider-Man comic books and more info about him can be found here). The story of "Maximum Carnage" in the comic book upon which the game is based takes place over fourteen issues. A war between Spider-Man and several allies (Venom, to name one) and Carnage and several allies (Shriek, Doppleganger). Somehow my dream brought me to the side of Spider-Man. I will spare the full details, but it was bizarre and terrifying while it lasted, but amusing once I woke up at 4:30ish in the morning and had to use the restroom. Then my mind unleashed the absolute horror.

I will say the dream ended in the brutal murder of my fiance by a knife-weilding pair of goons at a casino. The brutal vividness of it shocked me awake shortly before nine 9:00 AM. I was sweating, and my arms were jittery.

There were many dreams before these, occuring every night I took the melatonin supplement; I'm sure of it.

So this has inspired me. I was originally going to do a literary journalism peice on football helmets and concussions, but this is far more interesting to me now. I want to investigate the effects of melatonin supplements on the brain and find a cause for the dream activity.

I will take more tonight just to see if any more bizarre dreams occur.
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