About the night of 3/4-5, last night, different from all other nights in my experience, in its schedule and in the content of my dreams, suggesting that I spent the night in the grip of feel-good hormones rather than stress hormones. And awoke in calm delight.
First, some background, about earlier nights. Then about the schedule of last night’s sleep; about the content of last night’s dreams; and an appended note about feel-good hormones and stress hormones.
Earlier nights. From my 3/4/26 posting “Three nights on the hormonal rollercoaster”:
A journal of the nights of 3/1-2, 3/2-3, and (last night!) 3/3-4, during which I experienced the deepest lows and the greatest highs of hormone-driven states of being.
… From the morning of 3/2, about the night of 3/1-2.
One of the worst nights of my life, with a terrible responsibility dream; I was taxed with summarizing all of sociolinguistics, and my life depended on getting it all down and getting it all right. That had me thoroughly spooked — in a flood of cortisol, triggering sweaty panic — and infected my later dreams that night.
… From the morning of 3/4 (today), about the night of 3/3-4.
And now, exceptionally good sleep, with wonderful rewarding story dreams. The polar opposite of 3/1-3.
The schedule of sleep. My usual schedule is set by my need to whizz regularly throughout the night. Normally awakening in need once every hour (with such regularity that when I wake I can estimate the current time within 10 or 20 minutes). Urinal handy at bedside, I take my whizz and then drop back to sleep in about 20 seconds (it’s a talent). Meanwhile catching a few minutes of KQED playing on the radio.
Last night was just as regular, but — first time ever — I awoke every two hours. So not as much information / entertainment from KQED.
The content of my dreams. Again for the first time ever, what I can only describe is an assortment of pleasant people (all of them strangers to me) just chatting in the most inconsequential way about the minutiae of daily life. No actual events. Like Seinfeld (famously a show about nothing), a long dream, interrupted by stretches of sleep, about nothing. Startlingly uneventful, but, well, nice. So I awoke feeling quietly happy, for no reason I could identify, but that was fine. Presumably some feel-good hormone or combination of them had taken over the drive through the night. Seven hours later, I’m still quietly resonating in the penumbra of those dreams — and talking enthusiastically with my helper Isaac. Someone should bottle this stuff.
Hormones. Aside from those regulating sexual desire, which have been my companions since puberty arrived, when I was 10. In the popular and semi-technical literature, there are the feel-good hormones dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins, and the stress hormones cortisol, epinephrine / adrenaline, and norepinephrine / noradrenaline — though the metaphorical labels warm and bright might suit them better. Both have functions that are crucial for health and survival, in the right context at the right time.
My most recent experience with cortisol came in a nap dream a few days ago, when I faced a demon, evil embodied, through a screen door and took a hit of cortisol that snapped me out of the dream, sweating in fear, and then (its work having been done) evaporated, and warm hormones took over. The way things are supposed to work.
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