Grrl Power #751 – Dreamescape
I had intended to write this slightly more seriously, then I thought of this and it amused me. Hopefully no one is too upset this session is going in a Sydney-esque direction. Dr. Frost may be able wrangle her back on course on the next page.
Any number of things that Sydney was exposed to on the Alari homeworld could be pretty nightmare inducing. Being along, being lost, being surrounded by death, a planet of silence, fires burning on the horizon as far as you could see, not to mention the giant death machine gunning for you.
I used to have a recurring nightmare about… basically Godzilla, only Godzilla was like five miles tall, and you could see him coming from miles away through the billowing smoke and the burning horizon. It was sort of an impending and unavoidable doom sort of thing, plus there was a factor of being unable to properly register the scale and distance of something that large. There was a sort of Lovecraftian element of skewed perception to it.
Sometimes I think nightmares are scary just because your brain tells you they are, because some of the things I’ve had ‘nightmares’ about aren’t particularly scary, and some of the things I’ve dreamed about that sound scary weren’t remotely frightening in the dream. I had one where I was wandering around my high school, but instead of lockers, there were clear tubes, and all the students had been skinned and their bodies were floating in the tubes. Instead of being scared in the dream, I was walking around looking at all the tubes and thinking about how good the special effects were.
Fortunately I don’t dream much anymore, or if I do I only remember like 3 or 4 dreams a year.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
That’s a very Sydney nightmare….
I’ve had that nightmare before, tones of time, every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday night for the first 4 ish years in the military.
The military solution to everything is running.
Max: I see, so Sydney can not sleep do to running. Leave it to me I can fix that.
The next day an hour after morning PT
Max: Alright everyone get change, we are going for a light jog.
An hour after the run
Max: Alright everyone get change, we are going for a little run.
And so on …
Sydney should be so tired that she does not dream at all.
Eyup….
My squad used to joke about that.
“From the bastards who bought you ‘pushups till your arms go numb’ and ‘crunches till you puke’ comes PT!, the MIRACLE cure all!”
” do you have dandruff??
PT!
Cancer?
PT!
Hemorrhoids?
PT!
Missing a limb?
PT!
AIDS!
PT!
Massive hemorrhaging?
PT!”
I have no idea what PT stands for and there’s no useful context outside of “some kind of exercise”. Anybody got a glossary?
PT = Physical Training …
Leading to one of the best quotes:
“I will PT you until your ass is sucking buttermilk! I will PT you till you f****** die!”
Physical Training = PT you know military we shorten everything to initials
Good Morning Vietnam:
“Excuse me, sir. Seeing as how the VP is such a VIP, shouldn’t we keep the PC on the QT? ‘Cause if it leaks to the VC he could end up MIA, and then we’d all be put on KP.”
Physical Training. Other options: Personality Transfers, Probably Torture, Platypus Taming, Privates Touching, Plinko Trials, Popcorn Torching ..
PT = Physical Training. Basically ‘walk it off’ except instead of walk, it’s run or march for five miles with a full pack, or something. :)
As other have said, physical training. And also as others have said, it can be used as a form of punishment just shy of, or not even shy of, torture. This causes all kinds of semi-humorous memes, such as the position for beginning pushups being called “The front leaning rest.” Yes, this is the actual, official name. I’m guessing so that in court it sounds all innocuous to the jury, i.e. “I placed the recruits in the front leaning rest for four hours.” Aww, how thoughtful!
And if that doesn’t fix your missing limb, here’s some water and ibuprofen!
Good times.
Be sure to change your socks too, otherwise the water and ibuprofen won’t work.
Also, wear that reflective belt or nazi space isises will run you over in traffic.
Yeah great knees still hurt like hell but my headache is gone. What’s worse is when the person issuing boots gets your foot size wrong. Both little toes broken with stress factures. I have wide feet so sure I6m a size 8 but it needs to be a six E then. Drill Sargent called them flipper.
I got my first ibuprofen cure in basic. And it was an actual cure. I had agony in my knees, and this despite going into basic as a person who had pursued a very rigorous PT program. It felt like I had ben wa balls in my knees, and not for pleasure… Every flex was excruciating. Ibuprofen reduced the swelling of my tendons and that was that. It was seriously like magic for someone who had never experienced tendonitis before.
What if I have exhausted glycogen stores?
>The military solution to everything is running.
I remember from my militia days we were told if the Soviets shelled our grid square – run. They can annihilate a whole grid square so taking shelter doesn’t work.
Early tests of flechette shells (shells which explode into hundreds/thousands of darts as opposed to just using the explosion itself to injure/kill the enemy) used dummies in a football field like area. After the shell was fired they measured the damage to the dummies and determined that each one had sustained at least 3 mortal injuries. Running isn’t a cure here, but being in a decent foxhole will give you a chance of survival.
*The military solution to everything is running.*
Except in the Navy. I never ran anywhere in the Navy. In boot camp we just marched from one class to the next. Once I was in the fleet,… well, there’s no place TO run on a destroyer escort. Even during battles stations it’s like three strides and then having to slow to duck though a watertight door or climb a ladder. I suppose there was the helo deck, but that was like 50 feet by 30 feet so you really couldn’t get up much of a run there.
It might be different for the guys on a bird farm. They have that nice big, flat flight deck they can sprint on, except when flight ops are going, which seemed to be nearly continuous around-the-clock action for the bird farms we escorted.
Treadmills and exercise bikes?
I was Army, but I had family who were Navy. They described the interesting effect of running on a ship which is rolling with the waves. You are light as a feather on the down pitch and feel like you’re running on Jupiter on the up pitch.
She’s still got the alone without anyone to help her part too. just the running is sticking lol
The way I ended my chase dream, a large and loud dinosaur, was it finally caught me. In each successive dream it got closer and closer till I found myself in a cave full of equipment and was dressed for using my jet pack. Only it was enclosed so I was doing extended hops till one time I landed and chomp! Things went black and I woke up and so far haven’t had another dream of being chased by a therapod ever.
Don’t run, confront it and lose.
Sydney is gonna get a syndrome named after her isn’t she?
And would she be disappointed if she only got _one_ named after her? :)
This syndrome is defined by recurring bad dreams pushing a good hero over the edge and turning them to the dark side. A person experiencing this effect is known as a ‘Sco-Villain’.
Not to be confused with the infamous Ska-Villain
Alien encounters will soon be known to have a number of Scovilles just like hot sauces. The difference is how close you get to being scorched rather than how much it scorches you.
Aaannnnd, we have a winner!
The only thing my mind brings up here: https://youtu.be/SxtvDbleWxY (Da doo run run)
Sorry about that.
Not Tracy Chapman’s “Revolution”?
Another good one. But my mind gravitated to the one which has “run” in the title without being about running.
Lola Rennt Not only does Lola have to run all the time but she’s stuck in a timeloop until she gets it right.
I have a sneaking suspicion the doctor is gonna decide sydney isnt dealing with the trauma in a healthy manor
> in a healthy manor
Dunno, she may have very strong foundations, but not everything sorted correctly under her roof, as it were…
(sorry)
Dealing with trauma in an unhealthy manor is usually shortened to “Wayne Manor.”
This is definitely a situation in which “Would Batman . . . ” isn’t going to be helpful.
Not since Peggy over invoked the power of the bat.
True. Also, the answer to “Would Batman avoid talking to a therapist and sublimate his trauma in an unhealthy way” isn’t going to push Sydney toward getting help.
Plus, the psychiatrists most seen in the Bat-verse are Dr. Hugo Strange (tries to subvert, control, and/or kill Batman), Dr. Jeremiah Arkham (goes insane, blows up the asylum, also tried to kill Batman), and Dr. Harleen Quinzel (goes insane, becomes obsessed with an imagined romance with the Joker, occasionally tries to kill Batman). None of those tropes would be likely to make Sydney more inclined to seek therapy.
I don’t know… she’d probably get on well with Harley…
Except they keep to think the trauma is being left alone on the alien planet, while in reality it is all due to the “training” they are putting her under
I thought it would be her impaled on that shard and slowly bleeding out alone on a dead world. Which reminds me she needs to thank that super tailor for very literally saving her life with his gear.
Yeah this is definitely going to be one of those sessions for the doctor. I get the feeling that she is it certain if Sydney is being genuine or pulling her leg with how she describing her nightmare or rather the root cause of her anxiety from her nightmare.
I feel Sydney on this one. Had a CO who loved to run as a PT. Stuff would give me nightmares too (Damn marathon people). Give me a 100 pound pack and have me walk in the desert for 30 miles i’m ok, but running…
Yup, i know how you feel. It’s been 12 years since Basic and i STILL despise having to run.
Doesn’t help that the wee wifey keeps telling me to do it because i am actually putting on weight.
Eat less. If you’re putting on the pounds, there’s no substitute for cutting calorie input to less than your daily expenditure. But only slightly less; crash dieting is terrible for a body.
I would, problem is, I’m STILL in the military, just in a “sedentary” position, I’m a Divisional QuarterMaster.
So basically I spend most of the day receiving and cataloging what comes in and goes out.
Add to that fact the pip that i get to go HOME every night, granted that i get back in by 5am, AND it’s two hour drive to and from the base…..
I wake up at 3am, just to get to work before then traffic sets in.
I’d stay on the base, but i miss my family, I’d leave the military, but i can’t get this sort of paycheck ANYWHERE in the private sector (i’ve checked).
So, 14 hour days, 7 days a week………
I actually wish the English ninja fuck who trained me all those years ago was still around, he’d motivate me effectively.
I always hated running.
I figured if God had intended for me to run there’d be some big fucker chasing me.
When I joined the Marine Corps, sure enough one was.
Flash forward to my third enlistment, and I still hated running, yet I ran anyway.
But by then, Marine Corps standards had fallen.
They weren’t getting guys my size in any more, just these little scrawny bastards.
Thing was, those little bastards wouldn’t run.
So I had to chase them.
ROFL
That made me laugh Thanks, it’s been a blech day.
I can’t help but wonder if this is the same as when I was in school and we stubbornly insisted every year that new kids were shorter than ever, staying wilfully ignorant of the fact that we were just growing.
It’s the Circle of Liiiife!
It cracks me up that annecdotes about running, of all thing, brought all the veterans out of the woodworks.
Shared pain, eh? We may not all have combat stories, but we can all tell you about PT. XD
I always thought we had it bad (and we did), till i heard about the squad they trained before us……
The instructors taught them to swim…..
In wet sand….
Try THAT for PT!
I envy those in the military for one thing: They always have some funny story about military life to share.
I’m curious why she thinks she now has nightmares about running. Sure, she had one her first night back, and then had to run this morning. But she clearly has had not sleep since PT, so how does she know she now has nightmares about running? Frankly, I think she just hates running and is subconsciously looking for an excuse…
Plus, it can’t be what gave her the nightmare; she did the running after she got up. Personally,I’d be more worried if the events hadn’t stressed her out, but running is plainly the conscious trying to cover for the sub- or unconscious AND trying to get herself out of PT simultaneously. And we’ve all had the “Fleeing the Inescapable” nightmare; unless it’s covering for something else it’s a one-shot – all-night nightmares of running with no escape is your mind lying to itself about some other cause…
And I beg leave to doubt that most of you hate running worse than I. I had double pneumonia three times before entering high school. I would occasionally cough bloody flem while running. That got me out of running in PT class for the rest of the week, but only for the rest of the week. “Got to run to strengthen up those weak lungs…” trust me, it didn’t…
Stupid spelling correct… slept not sleep in the third sentence…
I think Dr. Frost would agree with you about the nightmare not really being about running. It’s more likely deflection: Sydney is focusing on the aspect of the nightmare that’s a comfortable, controllable source of pain and discomfort. Not the nearly getting gut-stabbed by a piece of shrapnel. Not the Mega-Squidward-carrier (Mega-Squarrier?) the size of the Himalayas or its crew of Chtulhus (Crewthulu?). Not even being trapped somewhere that doesn’t allow you to do normal things (drive a car, read a menu, understand a conversation — the Dyson-like sphere wasn’t exactly stress free). Nope, just the running.
It makes sense, since running is more controllable, and not likely to actually kill her. But it’s definitely not the root cause of the nightmares.
The next step in therapy would be getting to whether Sydney consciously knows the nightmare wasn’t really mainly about running, or if her deflection is going on a little deeper down.
Also, Sydney’s experience with therapy previously may have boiled down to “ADHD? Take a pill.” Talk therapy may take some adjustment of her expectations.
The “Dyson-like sphere” is called The Fracture.
Thank you for your interest, and feel free to stop by anytime.
Those things you mentioned? Sydney was in control, she may not have known what was happening or why, butt she was in control (and remember what happened to Squiddly and his colleagues? yeah, can totally see how out of control Sydney was there :rolleyes: )
As for being on the Fracture, she was no more ‘uncomfortable’ than if she ended up in a country that doesn’t speak or understand American
For Sydney, the running is something she can’t control because it’s part of her new routine and not even a near-death experience on an alien world is going to get her out of it
Sometimes, a porcupine really is just a prick on legs
OMG so there IS someone that is ACTUALLY reading the story! I was starting to wonder whether the people were here only to comment…
The only breaking situation for Sidney we have been shown where the two training session, and maybe being nearly killed by Sciona, but people insist that it was all due to the Big Scary Alien: maybe she just enjoy the thrill of the fight as much as some people enjoying dropping out of a plane with only a small piece of cloth between them and a terminal velocity impact with the ground. Or some sick masochists enjoy running 5km every day, first thing in the morning
As a reference
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-160-explodiest-beam-vs-the-shieldiest-shield/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-173-biiig-bada-boom/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-255-the-arc-wrestling-federation/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-401-bat-pact/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-440-this-reaction-would-earn-him-a-d-at-monster-u/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-501-1-down/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-545/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-585/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-652-prepare-for-warp-0-00000454/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-660-melochondria/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-676-double-death-star/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-749-autopilot/
And now try to tell which are traumatic and which are not
Running is typically linked with our Fight or Flight reaction. With the exception of athletes (particularly those involved in track and field type sports) and people who run regularly for recreational purposes, running is typically linked with our fight or flight reaction.
While she’s never been the biggest fan of running, this goes a lot farther than her dislike of the military style of PT Arcon employs.
Sydney’s nightmares about running are likely due to her subconsciously still being stuck in that fear induced mode. Not hard to see given her rather extreme fear based responses following the welcome back party. Namely locking herself up inside of her shield continuously with the life support orb running (literally duct taped to her hands so she can’t accidentally “let her guard down”). Notice how when she first came outside with everyone she was all shrugged over and “hiding” posture.
mmh I’m not sure I like the funnier direction, but I know that it can definitely get way too serious if Syd has PTSD for the entire comic
Given the other choices are “Entire comic does a severe Cerebus Syndrome as Sydney deals with massive psychological trauma”, “Sydney has PTSD, but it gets totally cured in three pages”, or “Sydney has PTSD which is seemingly cured but becomes her Kryptonite whenever the plot needs her to fail”, I’ll take this path as being the least egregious.
You forgot option 5: “Sydney has PTSD but DaveB forgets about it in four comics.” There’s precedent for this one. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-295-ovareaction/
He didn’t forget about Sydney’s period, he dealt with it and moved on, unless you would prefer he focused on her getting issued Archon-brand sanitary pads and spend an entire page of her wearing them and then disposing of them…
Here’s the other thing – deflection is absolutely natural for Sydney.
This is how she would act REGARDLESS of whether she develops PTSD.
And she’ll have occasional flashbacks and aftereffects REGARDLESS of anything.
It doesn’t have to be a major plotpoint, and it doesn’t have to happen often. Just an occasional peekaboo.
Sydney will have read a lot of, and seen nearly as much scenes with similar premises.
She’s probably even read Lovecraft!
So those titanic alien death-squids are probably nowhere near as scary as the things and scenarios that live in her imagination.
Yet having to do something like running, especially when you don’t get that natural high from it and you’re that tired, sounds like a real nightmare.
Yeah, her reaction was along the lines of, “I’ve looked at it, and the very sight of it hasn’t driven me mad. How dangerous can it be?”
I mean honestly, a therapist would take that in stride – her reaction isn’t unreasonable believe it or not because people really DO react differently to stressful situations. The fact that Sydney kicked its ass really IS a mitigating factor in her emotional effect.
A therapist would take as given that the part she said was scary is what was scary, basically.
It’s not running in dreams that bothers me…it’s when I’m trying to run but I’m slowed down to barely a crawl while the Nightmare Monsters approach. I imagine you’ve had the same kind of dream.
Sydney’s background with ADD and PTSD can make for a scary combination but I doubt the Shrink is inclined towards throwing meds at Sydney to try to quell the nightmares. I can see her using an exercise bike in the future or something else that gives her cardiovascular exercise without actually running.
Heh….
The look on the Doc’s face.
Welcome Doctor Frost, to the Sydney Scoville Zone
Please check your preconceived notions at the door, don’t worry, you won’t need them on the way out.
With Sydney abnormal is not a bug, it’s a feature.
What IS normal? And who decided that?
Normal is something that is a shared trait among the greater majority (80%+) of a shared group. Kinda like how it’s NORMAL to have two arms and two legs. If you have less, that’s “not normal.”
Similarly, if you spaz out and throw people by the tongue, or ninja chop anyone who comes up behind you, that’s not normal. Being “not normal” isn’t always a weakness, however. See: King Arthur. He wasn’t Normal at all. All the Normal people couldn’t pull the sword from the stone, but he, being special and not Normal, could. Thus he became king for a time.
So who decided that? Nature. God. Society. Take your pick.
… I think it was Merlin. In Arthur’s case I mean.
Help.
Help.
I’m being repressed.
Well considering her “cousin” is the psychiatrist for the x-men, she may have heard weirder.
… which would make for some interesting coffee chat
“..and my latest patient still has sexual obsessions about his dead, dead, re dead, and dead again wife.”
“… darling, wait until I tell you about the running.”
I agree that nightmares are scary solely because your mind makes them scary. I’ve had plenty of dreams that make no sense or otherwise shouldn’t be frightening in the least, but which freaked me out utterly while I was having them.
On a different note, I kind of feel like Sydney’s “Oh no, being on a dead planet with no way home while surrounded by monsters doesn’t bother me at all” spiel is actually a bit of denial on her part.
Yeah, I remember once having a terrifying nightmare about a yellow volkswagen Beetle. No idea why, I just remember it being utterly terrifying at the time, and when I woke up I immediately went ‘WTF?!’
Did this happen just after watching the Transformers (1986) movie for the first time? Unicron freaked me out, but maybe it was Bumblebee that worked on you. “Wait, did that car just change into a robot?!”
One may wonder what Dr.Frost is writing down….
“Make Sydney Say” bingo.
+1 Internets…
Is it PTSD (related) though or just stress at this point?
Stress.
The kaiju kung fu was only four days ago for Sydney.
Right, the therapy is supposed to prevent traumatic stress from turning into PTSD.
My dreams seem to have a ‘Don’t Save’ at the end.
That’s handy for nightmares but on the rare occasion where the
dream might be a good idea for a story it’s frustrating.
At least it’s not one of those running-but-hardly-moving dreams.
The worst I think I’ve ever had from a dream is one I can’t even remember now. All I remember is the feeling of existential dread. (Which I woke up with.) You don’t forget that feeling.
Is it just me that thinks her hair is secretly snakes? I can’t get it out of my head. They just look like tendrils, just about the right size, with the black and red…
She does look a bit inhuman for some reason. Could be a gorgon.
My very first dream that I know was in color was such a thing.
Voice of God Narration: “Over the mountains to the South lies Monster Island.”
Appears a bright orange dinosaur looking thing, the outside of its head fissured like a brain, crashing through the buildings toward my house.
Yep.
Also Yep on the dreams that anyone else would think were nightmares. Hey, there are creatures attacking, but it’s scifi, so it’s fun.
I would guess that the real, root fear here, unacknowledged and quickly skipped over, is Sydney’s fear of losing the orbs. That would also fit in with her worrisome tendency toward paranoia of late.
As to what the doctor is writing, she might just be faking it, to give herself time to think, without the social awkward pause.
Or am I just being paranoid?
Nah, Sydney hasn’t had them long enough for them to have become a fundamental part of her: she has lived longer without than with
That actually makes a lot of sense. Prior to finding the orbs Sydney was a muggle. With the orbs comes fame, fortune and the ability to hang out with some pretty special people. Sydney might feel, and with good reason, that without the orbs she’d be just another nerdett that can only dream about the life she gets to live now.
For someone like Sydney who has lead such a sedentary life, having to run would (and apparently is) a nightmare, compounded by the fact, as she said, the first thing she had to do after waking up is to run again
She’s not *that* sedentary, she’s a qualified solo scuba diver and it sounds like she enjoys some outdoor activities like hiking as well
Neither of those involves running
+5
Nightmares are nightmares, regardless of content. I get ones bad enough to soak the bed with sweat and thrash and call out. I wake up and end up frustrated that I have to go through the day sleep deprived because of something so ridiculous. The contents? Living with the non-custodial parent, typically being forced back into high school for some bullshit asinine legal reason. Dreams with serial killers or apocalyptica? Snooze right through that shit, no issues.
I’m married and have three bachelors. Graduated high school over two decades ago for good measure. Brains gonna brain.
The worst recurring nightmare I used to have, for no apparent reason, was about crossing the street. Then suddenly this menacing car appears, coming right at you, but no matter what you do, you simply cant seem to get off the road. Running, crawling, trying to drag yourself along, nothing works, you CANT reach the other side of the road, but you cant go back either. Then just before that damn car hits you, you wake up.
Solution: Stop playing the game ‘Frogger’ before bedtime.
X’-DD
:-þ
I expected Sydney to be concerned with killing. The huge monsters were intelligent. She doesn’t know if the fighter craft were robotic or piloted, and she destroyed thousands of them. Sydney learned that she’s capable of defeating the combined militaries of every earth nation, combined.
It’s not unheard of to respond to anxiety/trauma/etc by blowing up something else that makes you feel bad and projecting things onto that.
It’s how you get soldiers who face death and long marches all day then blow up when there’s no dessert left at the chow hall (as an anecdote).
The good doctor is probably thinking, “Good God, This is gold. I could probably get a published paper on Sydney…If anyone believed me.”
She may be scamming to get out of running. Just a sneaky suspicion.
But recruits never do that.
Are we all agreed that Sydney doesn’t want to be told to face her fears?
You mean, her fear of exercise? She’s in the right place to get over that phobia right quick :P
Identifying with Sydney here. I’ve actually lamented that since I’ve got more… life experience, my dreams and nightmares have stopped being about the fantastic, and are now so much more mundane.
I could easily prove to myself these days that I’m not really falling from 20,000 feet, and get back to sleep easily, but no, I *have* to dream that CPS is taking away my child because she wore tights to school too many days in a row, and if I miss work to take care of it, I’ll be fired.
My money says she’s being deliberately flip with the doc because she’s having trouble processing her fear… after Max made the off-hand comment about hiding permanently in her bubble for fear of brain scans, she probably just has this indistinct sense of wrongness about the world, and just feels… safer(?) thus ensconced
I am so glad I wasn’t drinking or eating when I read that last panel.
For the record I side with those who believe Sydney is hiding her trauma and hiding from her tramua.
Oops I meant the final panel in middle row.
Not dreaming anymore can be a sign of sleep apnea. Maybe talk to a doctor about that?
I used to have a recurring nightmare similar to the described dream about a 5 mile tall Godzilla in the distance. Only this was a tidal wave of indeterminate height. The angular height of it is about that of 2 peas held at arms length. Way off on the horizon. This is made more frightening in the waking world by the knowledge that the location of where this tidal wave can be seen is hundreds of miles inland, and through a mountain chain, sideways. For such a thing to be visible in this location, it’d have to have been even bigger when it hit the coast.
Serious impending doom kind of thing.
Haven’t had a dream like that in a long time though. Had plenty of monster dreams. I kick their butts every time. Doesn’t matter what it is, I always kill it in fairly short order.
Lightning though… I can’t fight that. I can’t punch it. I can’t nuke it. I can’t strangle it. I can’t shove it a rocket and launch it into the sun. And it always finds me anywhere that the sky can be seen. The safest place is always an interior room with no windows, but those are hard to come by. So, I usually end up diving to the corner where the wall meets the floor underneath a window, where the sky can’t be seen through the window. Can’t be any electric sockets under the window though.
And the weird thing is that in the real world, lightning does not bother me at all. Not even in the slightest. I ride motorcycles in thunderstorms and the most scared I get from lightning is maybe once in a blue moon being startled by loud thunder.
That’s a new one from a guy that suffers from sleep apnea, never heard not dreaming being a sign since the majority of people don’t actually remember most of their dreams. the normal signs are loud snoring, raw dry throat, insomnia, waking up choking, irritability angry all the time,morning headaches, tired all the time, those are just some of the major signs. Not dreaming with the machine I tend to have more vivid dreams mostly about how I was awake still and not sleeping or choking and drowning.
Tokumei – Lightning is raw creative power. You can’t escape it, but you can TAKE it.
That’s actually very much a gamer kind of answer. Most gamers don’t have nightmares about fighting monsters according to a lot of research done recently, gamers seem to actually have learned to like monster fighting. It is also one reason they’ve started looking at games as a good therapy for PTSD, gamers are more likely to grab a handy object and smack the heck out of whatever is attacking them. I have a family member with PTSD and can vouch that after he started doing a lot more gaming his night terrors reduced.
The nightmare is real. I sometimes wake up with leg cramps and 90% of the time my subconscious pairs it with a running nightmare or anxiety dream.
Long time no see.
Still play Champions?
~ Ed from Keesler.
I used to run it at New World, my FLGS here in OKC (near Tinker AFB.) Sadly, haven’t played Champs in years. Laster supers game for me was classic Marvel for my ‘bucket list’ retro gaming group.
I’m wondering if she’s beginning to realise just what a dangerous situation she was in. At the time she just did things because she had to but it’s more of an adrenaline crash and realisation of how dangerous the situation was.
Also, there’s probably the realisation (and possibly fear) of what she managed to do. She destroyed a things that were able to overwhelm an entire advanced civilisation. This conversation may say something about how she really feels:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-192-touching-star/
On the other hand, given the advice she was given, she may be feeling that her having the orbs is a danger to humanity (as it means aliens would target the Earth):
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-690-gotterdammermcguffins/
Yep. She took a couple of the MekaCthulhu because she was cornered and had to. She also knew that if she made one mistake, she was dead.
I don’t think she’s anywhere near as overconfident as she projects… but either way, it will take her a while to process.
Wasn’t there something about being distracted immediately after a traumatic experience sometimes lessening the damage because a lot of it comes from replaying the event and going over the implications while still under the effect of various stress hormones and in a very stressed frame of mind? Sidney probably got all of the distraction here and then some, so actually thinking things through got delayed by a lot.
Still just armchair psychology of course, but possible one way to rationalize this.
Doing dishes. I despise doing dishes. To the extent that after letting my sink pile up, there’s been times I threw the dishes out and bought new ones so I wouldn’t need to do them. No nightmares about it though… unless you count having a dream about a short notice inspection. I don’t usually have nightmares though. Very rare. If I do get a nightmare it doesn’t last long since I’ve full control of my actions in a dream state. The only time I don’t have control, is during my Reality Dreams or what I call “Dreaming I’m Awake” they are so detailed that I have no idea that I’m actually asleep because they often start with me “waking up”
An example, I had an early morning appointment which is typically 2.5-3 hours on buses or waiting for the bus. My dream consisted of me waking up, eating getting cleaned up and ready, going out and waiting for the first bus (I have to take 3 in total) including other people waiting for the same bus and different routes. Time spent on the bus and the landscape. 2 more buses later, I get off and check into my appointment. Doctor is almost ALWAYS late when she gets to me. She calls me, 10 minutes after my appointment was supposed to start, I walk down the hall to the office, sit down… and my alarm to wake up goes off.
As one who was required to take drugs as a kid (Ritalin), I am not in a hurry to look for pharmaceutical answers to my problems. Rather than asking the doctor to prescribe mind-altering medication, I would be looking for alternatives first, such as nutritive therapy or mental exercises to work on. Mind you, the military wants its soldiers to be in shape and running definitely helps with the cardiovascular health, but Sydney is equating it with the unattainable.
Ugh, shinsplints. I used to be able to run like the wind.
Then fucking shinsplints happened.
Now I bike and kick my asthma in the ribs until it shuts the fuck up.
Still, terrible thing to have nightmares about.