Of weird dreams and other things not worth mentioning.

When nightly images in the deepest recesses of your brain begin to take a turn for the worst and start showing yourself being forced to marry an evil version of a direct relative (it's too awful to say which one exactly...let's just say it's deeply disturbing to marry someone this close to you in the family tree) to save the life of your real-life significant other, you know it's time to WAKE THE FUCK UP AND REBOOT.  Shake off the bad juju.  Maybe even tear up and whimper a little.  That's what I've been doing almost every night.

I don't get it.  I've been having weird dreams/nightmares on a daily basis for almost a week now.  They usually involve people I communicate with on a daily basis, my family, my close friends as bad people, and sometimes, my subconscious digs up people from my forgotten past and puts them in a supporting actor spot, and usually, in an antagonist role, i.e. the person is out to ruin my life, kill people dear to me, rape me or my female friends and family members, the works.  Sometimes the person transforms into a monster before coming after me.  Being raped by a monster!  Can you imagine?!  Where is all this coming from?

No, it can't be because I've been watching too many crime-centered shows or horror movies because for weeks now I've only been exclusively marathoning Sex and the City (okay, for some, this might be classified as horror, but not me!).  It can't be because I think of destructive thoughts before bed time, i.e. some hooligan bursting into our apartment to rob us, rape me, and kill J (or if the hooligan were into guys, maybe the other way around), because I usually think of happy thoughts before I drift off to sleep.  Could it be because I'm currently reading A Clash of Kings by R.R. Martin?

A quick Google search reveals that the most common cause for nightmares in adults include sickness or fever, stress, relationship issues, trauma from violence, and use of drugs and alcohol. Hmm, we've been drinking beer every night with a goal of accumulating 54 empty bottles for our home beer brewing project.  Could that be it?  I'll try to not drink beer today and see if it's connected.

Usually, going back to sleep and "modifying" the dream works for me, but lately, it's been failing.  The silly part of me even flipped my pillow to the other side one time, in the hopes of changing the bed vibes.  Didn't help either.

How do you snap out of a cycle of bad dreams?