Looping
I am 60 years old. I live in a house in the suburbs. I don't have a baby.
Early this morning I had a dream that I was in an apartment on the 6th floor of a building in a city. I looked in on my sleeping baby and saw a cheetah carrying it out a window onto a ledge and walking away.
I panicked and chased after it. I didn't see it on the ledge anymore, so I started searching. In the way of dreams, I was on the roof, then street level, then on ledges. I went into a rooftop restaurant and asked for help and everyone just stared. I was on the ledge going in and out of windows of apartments, offices, and warehouses. A long dream.
I woke up, sort of. Half asleep, I started obsessing over what I would do if it happened. I was awake enough to have my eyes open and know I'd been dreaming, but asleep enough to be truly concerned about a cheetah stealing my baby from my 6th floor city apartment.
It is important the cheetah not drop the baby off the ledge. If I could get it to put the baby down, I could fight it, right? Maybe adrenaline would make me strong enough. Should I go down to the street and try to catch the baby if it falls? Can you safely catch a baby that falls six stories? Do cheetahs eat babies whole, or would I find a body? Am I sure it is a cheetah, and not a leopard? Do I take the time to call for help, or just keep looking?
I call it looping, when I can't stop thinking about something over and over, no matter how ridiculous it is. It happens often, usually waking from a dream, half asleep. Part of me knows it's an unrealistic scenario, that I should stop thinking about it. But a bigger part of me believes I must come up with a solution.
I try to think about something else, hoping it will replace the loop. It never does. I just keep looping. Sometimes I get back to sleep.
This time it lasted over 2 hours. I would look at the clock, know I needed to stop and get back to sleep, try to get back to sleep, then realize I was looping again. The sun rose and I finally got up, exhausted.
Do you experience anything like looping?
