Decaffeinated Jay (and dreams)

For most of my adult life, I've been a very heavy coffee drinker. (I was a light coffee drinker as a child, too.) At my worst, when I was working someplace where there was free coffee just across the hallway from me, I drank a good six or eight cups a day. The last year or so, I'd been trying to keep it to two large cups a day.

But for the last couple months or so, I've been living an almost caffeine-free life. I had tried that once before, and it was a spectacular failure — I went cold-turkey, and after two months with no caffeine (except the occasional little bit of chocolate), I was sleeping quite a lot more, but I was also just as utterly groggy and unable to concentrate as I normally am on my worst days all the time. I decided it wasn't fair to my job to be completely useless, and gave up, with the theory that I might try again at some point if I ever had an extended vacation.

Both times started about the same way — I came down with a mild cold, stopped drinking coffee during that, and just never started up again.

This time has gone a lot better. I'm sleeping better (but not all the time the way I did last time), and I feel more energetic than I did when I was drinking coffee. I'm not sure exactly what's different. One thing that's different is that I'm not completely off coffee this time; lately I've been drinking maybe one cup a week. (And I sure notice it when I do, both in good ways and in bad.) Maybe the time of year helps; I don't remember what season it was the last time. But in any case, I'm happy with the changes it seems to be making in my sleep cycle and my general level of energy.

One side effect of sleeping better seems to be that I'm remembering my dreams more. Since my dreams tend to be on the bizarre side, this is a Good Thing^TM. For instance, this morning...

( Dreams )