I overcame insomnia and my mind became one with the ocean

Insomnia is defined as "habitual sleeplessness; inability to sleep." It should be defined as "hell."

Sleep is defined as "a condition of body and mind that typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is relatively inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended." It should be defined as "heaven."

Insomnia and sleep are complete opposites and hateful enemies. Insomnia torments sleep. It dangles hope in front of it and takes it away when it gets too close. Apparently, humans cannot go longer than 264 hours, or 11 days, without sleep. It is a wonder a person established that limit to show us how we long we can go. It seems tortuous.

Randy Gardner took on that arduous task in 1965 to set a world record for a science fair. A science fair does not seem worthy of such a commitment.

What people do not talk about is the heavenly feeling that comes with overcoming insomnia.

Not only does it bring back forgotten feelings of morning bliss, but it also brings back dreams! To the extent we remember them, dreams can provide an eclipse into an unknown realm - - - a way to figure out the daily problems that torment our wakeful state.

After experiencing a month of insomnia, treated with bouts of sleeping pills, it magically disintegrated. I overcame it, somehow. Perhaps, my body was tired of fighting something so biologically engrained into its need to survive, that it welcomed sleep again.

And boy was I in for quite the welcoming party. I was gifted with a dream so vivid and interesting that it demands its own spotlighted story outside my own memories.

Enter. My. Mind.

I start out at a party talking to someone I work with. The conversation is not memorable. The conversation turns physically uncomfortable though, and that part is very memorable. My lips start to swell. They swell so bad that they are swollen shut. I become panicked and run out of the party. I can sense that the swelling is painful too and maybe even life ending.

I end up outside talking to a kind stranger. He seems helpful. He wraps me with some sort of magic white rope that flows around me. I don't remember what happens to the magic rope, but I end up at a random area. And part two of the dream begins.

I have snow on my face suddenly, which is quite random given the non-winter esthetic of the dreams thus far.

The snow materializes into ocean material. Which is beautiful given their opposite contributions to mother nature. I go from an ocean outsider into one with the ocean itself. I literally and figuratively, because it is hard to articulate fully, become the ocean. I am no longer in a state of angst over my painfully swollen shut lips.

I am underneath the ocean mixed into it as if I belong and I am not human, or part human-ocean. It is hard to convey the almost horrifying nature of it. The ocean is unknown and terrifying enough. It is pretty from the outside but creepy on the inside, with all the strange creatures, tentacles, and plants. We admire it from afar and enjoy its calming presence, but we certainly do not want to be engulfed inside it, let alone turned into it.

I try to avoid seeing what swims and lurks around me. It is like watching a scary movie and I want to turn away. But I am forced to see it, because I am now a part of it, and forced to understand it, because the movie is my mind. I cannot understand why I am there, but I am, and it is not up to discussion to leave.

The colors are paint-worthy. I am mixed into a conglomerate of vivid colors that are breathtaking. The dream is not meant to be understood, but simply experienced - - - almost like viewing a captivating painting.

I want to understand it, but I try not to. Not everything is meant to be understood, but perhaps, just experienced.

Sleep is a heavenly gift, and the memory of our dreams can be beautiful reminders that our mind is immensely complicated.