Narcolepsy and REM

I have always had a weird connection with people I am close with through dreams. Sometimes they're people in my life, sometimes they're people who I have not seen in decades, once or twice it has been the deceased. They're always dreams where the person is reaching out to me for help, and in some instances, it has been the actual event that was happening at the exact moment I was having the dream.

I know a lot of people will think this is bullshit and that's okay. I am going to tell you 3 stories from my life about connections I have had with people.

When I was 17 years old, I moved out of my parents' house. I moved into a small apartment unit that had just four units. It wasn't anything special, but it was mine. I was pregnant with my first child.

The day I moved in, the elderly couple upstairs and over one unit introduced themselves. I jokingly called them the 2-J's, because their names were Jimmy and Judy. At 17, I was sometimes annoyed at the fact that they would keep me, if they caught me walking in, talking a little longer than I would have liked. I didn't understand at that time that they didn't have anyone else, and nobody ever came to visit. Over the course of the next year, I grew to love them like they were my own Grandparents, even going upstairs willingly, sitting out on the deck, and staying for hours- just talking.

Jimmy used to joke and call Judy and myself the "two hens", because as he said, "you're always clucking." He meant gossiping. It was a small town, and between the two of us, we knew everything- as it is in most small towns. Within 3 years, I had to move out, due to my husband leaving, and not being able to afford the rent on my own. Despite this, I went back at least once a week to visit, because I couldn't imagine my life without them. Within 6 weeks, I had saved up enough money to move back out on my own, just my daughter and myself, and we got an extremely small apartment about 20 min west of the 2-J's. I was so busy working and being a single mom, that I didn't get out to see them as often. Once a week, went to every two weeks, to once a month, then I went a period of 3 months. I didn't realize it, because I was so busy.

At that point, I was not only working full time, but I had also gone back to school full time and was a semester away from my first associate degree. I also had a new boyfriend, who would eventually become my second husband. But I am now getting ahead of myself.

I had a dream that Judy came to my apartment, and she had baked cookies. The thing is- Judy didn't cook. Ever. She told me to sit on the porch and when I walked out of the porch of my apartment, it suddenly turned into her porch at our previous apartment. I saw Jimmy's chair. I saw his cane. I saw his can of Old Style.

What I didn't see was him.

I went to her house that day and found out that he had passed away 1 month earlier. I had missed the services.

This made me move back to my old apartments, because I wanted to be closer to Judy.

And within the month, I was living back in the same apartment I lived in 2 years earlier. Except it was just my daughter and myself. But soon my boyfriend and I would start talking about getting married. I wanted to finish my bachelor's. My daughter was nearly 4, and I was sure I didn't want more kids. He wanted more kids.

I ended up pregnant a month after the conversation and we had to move into a larger apartment. There will always be speculation about tampering with birth control, but nothing will ever be proven.

I digress.

I didn't want to move away from Judy, because at that point, she and I had become close. I would even call her my best friend. She would call me the same. I was her only friend, and she was the one person I could always depend on to listen, to understand, to never judge, and to love me regardless of what I did or said.

She was hands down, the best person I have ever known in my life.

Moving away from her was excruciatingly difficult.

But my second marriage would fail within the first year, and since I didn't need as much space without a husband, I thought, "Why not go back by the one person who made me feel like I was truly loved?" You know? The way a mother should make you feel loved. That unconditional love.

I never had that at home.

I was back where I started at 17 and both Judy and I were happy as can be.

I had a new job, but I still had that last semester of college to finish.

And Judy started getting sick.

She started asking me to do small things for her- can you go to the grocery store and grab me this? Can you drive me here? I had a Buddy Holly cd that I would play for her in the car, and she loved listening to it. Every song she would tell me, "Oh, this is a good one."

It was weird, because she was amazing at being fiercely independent. I think it was why she and I got along so well. She was married twice and a single mom for 10 years in between marriages. She understood me.

Then she started asking me for things that I didn't understand. "Can you buy me sanitary napkins?"

My friend Judy had the same exact birthday as my idol: Judy Garland. June 10, 1922. The year was 2008. She was 86 years old. She didn't need sanitary napkins. I didn't question it. I thought maybe she was embarrassed that she had started "wetting" herself, or something like that.

November of the same year rolled around, and she started having falls, needed to use her walker, and weighed about 85 lbs. She had always been not a larger woman, but a solid woman.

"Why aren't you going to the Dr? Can I drive you? Can we bring you to the ER?"

"If I go there, I'm not coming back. We both know that."

I didn't want to believe it. But on some level, I probably knew that she was right.

She wanted one last Christmas at home. Then we did our special New Year's that we always did: KFC fried chicken, NEVER forget the coleslaw, and I picked up a bottle of champagne that was Elvis themed called "All Shook Up". She loved The King.

This was the only year she didn't make it until midnight, but she had 2 gifts she wanted to give me: an original bottle of Chanel No. 5 from the first year it was released, that she only used once a year since (and never lost its scent) and a set of earrings and pin- Christmas Trees. That was nearest and dearest to her. She loved Christmas more than anything and she wore those every day of December every year.

It was that moment that I knew that she truly knew that she wasn't coming back, once she went in.

As I helped her into bed that night, she asked me to come back around 8 am, to help her out of bed to use the bathroom, shower, and change- she was going to call ambulance, and go into the hospital.

We rang in the New Year, January 1, 2009, sending my best friend away to die. I met her at the hospital, where she named me the Power of Attorney, and explained to me all of her final wishes: DNR, etc. I promised to honor them all.

I cried the entire drive home.

It was colon cancer.

She was soon sent to hospice hear our apartment and I went to visit her every single day. Some days, sneaking in KFC coleslaw, and occasionally sneaking her outside to have "one last cigarette". The nurses would yell at me and I would respond, "She's going to fucking die soon anyway."

I wanted her to have everything she wanted in her final days. Fuck 'em. Nobody would ever share the kind of love we shared for me; I wasn't going to neglect her wishes for them.

It was March 8th and I was sitting in class. That's right- I made it back to school. Judy made me promise to do that, and we were both hoping I would finish before Judgement Day. My phone rang. I didn't answer, but somehow I just knew. It was hospice calling me to sign the DNR, final paperwork, authorization to cremate, etc. I took care of it all in one swoop.

I stayed for as long as I could. I told her everything I wanted to tell her- about how much I loved her, what she meant to me, and how I loved her more than I loved anyone else in this world. I could see tears in her eyes, and while she couldn't speak, she just pointed at her heart.

The look in her eyes still haunt me to this day. She knew it was her final hours and she knew I was there to say "Good-Bye."

I hate myself for having to leave that night, but I was a single mom, with 2 small kids, and nobody else to help me.

At approx. 2:56 am, I had a dream. Jimmy was standing in front of me. He no longer needed his cane. He held out his hand to mine, as if he was reaching to help me stand up, but as I reached out for him, he pulled it back away from me. All he said is, "I'll take it from here."

At 2:58 am, on March 9th, my phone rang. It was the care center.

Judy had passed away.

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My earliest childhood memory of my father is being in Key West, FL and seeing flashes of pink between tall green. I couldn't quite see what it was, but I remember that I wanted to very much. I pulled on his hand or his shirt, I don't quite remember, and held my arms up to him. He picked me up, and I saw the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life:

Flamingoes.

They have been my favorite animal ever since.

He bought me a black shirt with pink flamingoes on it, that said "Key West, Florida" on it that day. It was a very early 80's shirt in every way possible. I still had it up until a couple of years ago. It was lost in my last move. I think it was accidently placed in donations by my daughters, because they didn't know the significance.

I spent most of my childhood trying to win my father's approval. I adored my father. But I always felt like he would have preferred to have had all sons. I am the only daughter and the youngest in the family. I was often left out of things, and I always knew it was because I wasn't "one of them". So I tried to do the things my brothers did, because then maybe my dad would like me as much as he liked them- I played baseball, I collected cards, I climbed trees, I ran track, tried wrestling, and probably enough tomboy-ish things to make most people think I was what they called back then (in a more derogatory, not the "take back the word kind of way) butch.

It never seemed to work and I definitely could never compete with my middle brother. Even to this day, he is definitely the one my dad prefers to spend his time with, and maybe even likes best. I have come to terms with that, and am okay with it at this age and stage of my life.

When I am in the car with my father, it is usually an awkward silence. We don't have much to talk about and I don't think I ever knew how to connect with him. Maybe we just never had anything in common.

I know, without a doubt, that my father loves me. But I never felt like my father liked me- as a person.

But I still have a connection to him. One that I can't explain.

He shows up often in my dreams, and it often correlates to things that are happening in his life. It happens more than I tell people. It happens more than I wish it would sometimes. The dreams are often more vivid than I wish they would be.

I once had a dream that his ex-girl friend was cheating on him with her previous husband. I did tell him about it, and he did kind of laugh and said, "Don't be surprised if she is cheating" but never acknowledged the second part of the who.

When they broke up, his ex moved back in with her ex-husband.

The most vivid and awful dream I had took place during the time when an actual event was happening.

I living with an ex at the time, and I remember waking up in a cold sweat, shaking, and I called him. It went straight to voicemail. I forgot his phone couldn't take calls when he was at work. I text him:

"I need you to call me. I just had a very vivid dream that my dad's gf tried to kill him."

I went on to describe to him the exact way that she tried to kill him.

Two days later, my father called me, and told me he had something important to talk to me about. He started out with telling me there was an order of protection, there were police involved, and finally got to the heart of the story.

I stopped him:

"What time did this take place at?"

He told me the time.

I turned to my then boyfriend and said, "Open your phone and look at what time I sent you those texts."

The phone call to the police and the time that I woke up from that dream were within minutes of one another.

When I have vivid dreams about anyone in my life- I take it very seriously. Especially after this. I call them. I check on them. Even if it is just a "Hey, how have you been?" and make it seem casual.

I may never have the kind of relationship I would like with my dad, but I will always know that we do have some kind of special bond and closeness, that transcends normalcy. I realized it in that moment.

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Vivid dreams are something I have a lot of. I hold onto a dream journal, that I used to write in regularly, but kind of fell out of the habit when my nephew fell into a bad situation, and my dreams haunted me- due to the connections.

I have narcolepsy, which is both a sleep disorder, and what people usually don't know- associated with and related to autoimmune disorders. Some speculate it may be a form of autoimmune disease, with most recent research.

When you have narcolepsy, if you fall asleep for a 15-minute nap, you will go into REM. You also hallucinate sometimes when you're falling asleep and/or waking up, which is closely related to sleep paralysis- another thing most people with narcolepsy have.

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I have other stories I could add to this- friends being pregnant, friend showing up in my dream after years of no contact- finding out later it was the same day his father passed away, a friend leaving an abusive relationship/ needing help, a casual acquaintance who was suicidal- me receiving a letter in a dream, and reaching out the day after they had attempted to take their life, which resulted in one of the closest friendships of my life, and sad ones of ways I was unfortunately too connected to those who were supposed to love me, but didn't. And I saw things I didn't need to see. Judy has come back to visit me several times since her death, during times when I've needed her most, or just had things that I wished I could tell her. Many more- so many more. The vivid dreams are rarely helpful to me, but they do help me form a connection to others, in ways I am not capable of doing in real life, on my own.