I'm not sure if this is what you mean because it's generally not pre-recorded, but there is one guy I watch that plays Animal Crossing and then acts like the dialogue is actually part of an elaborate and very dramatic storyline. I think it's fun. I like to listen to him in the background while I do crafts. Yeah it's kinda like playing with dolls, that's why I like it actually... It's really sad to me that we're expected to stopped playing pretend and making up stories once we're adults. There's something really pure about using your imagination in silly ways for no reason. It's the same reason I love to watch people roleplay in DnD. It's not deep, it just makes me laugh every couple minutes as I'm crocheting a sweater or something. And, honestly, I feel like it helps me connect back to that younger bit of me that used to play with toys. I'm trying not to grow too old to find joy in silly made-up stories.
sappho
This is mine. I'd have all the kids learn both spoken toki pona and the corresponding sign language. It'd rapidly diverge from the canonical version in real world use, and it's more entertaining than strictly practical, but I just think it'd be neat. And it really wouldn't take much time investment to do.
Wrist braces help with my carpal tunnel issues. I wear them at night to make sure my wrists aren't bending in a weird way while I sleep, and I put them on before crocheting (which is typically what causes me the most irritation). I have the fancy vertical kinda mouse too and I do prefer it to a normal one, but IDK if it actually helps with the pain over time because I currently can't be seated upright at my desktop for more than an hour a day.
See, I was gonna go to a therapist for 150+ sessions to work through my religious trauma from my very Catholic upbringing. But luckily I realized I was just being an edgy atheist about it. Saved me so much time!
and yes i have tried dream journals, but you need to remember something to write it down. i could write 'i maybe had a dream about a house at night or something, there was a window and lights' and that would be like 99% of my dream journal entries
This is normal for beginning to dream journal. Making entries like that is perfect. I do not know exactly how it works in the brain but I know from my own experience and others that if you consistently write down the little bits you do remember, your brain will gradually start retaining more.
i keep waking up in the middle of the night, not enough to do anything (if i really 'got up' even enough to jot down notes, i wouldn't be able to get back to sleep), saying to myself 'i definitely was just dreaming, i'll definitely remember this well enough in the morning to write it down' and then its gone by the time i'm actually awake
This also happened to me during this process and I think it's an important part. What I did was keep a scratch pad next to my bed. Wake up, do not turn on the lights or move much at all, and just scribble down something illegible. Alternatively turn on your voice recording app and mumble some nonsense. Go back to sleep as soon as your body wants to. It doesn't matter that in the morning you don't understand what you said or wrote. It's something about your brain being shown that it's important information to retain.
I use weed for PTSD too, and it definitely makes remembering dreams more difficult because you just don't have as many with the REM suppression. But since I've made a practice of dream journaling - you really do have to keep at it unfortunately - I still regularly have the sort of "meaningful psychodrama" dreams that I end up discussing in therapy and dissecting to better understand my own feelings.
That one Grimes TikTok where she says "I have a proposition for the communists!" and "Collective farming is really not a vibe." I don't know why, her inflection/tone is just stuck in my head forever and it's really just the funniest thing in the world to me
I'm sorry your sleep is so awful. That shit will break you down over time, and then everything just gets harder.
Alcohol is really helping you in several material ways, so in your position, I'd prioritize finding replacement strategies over anything else. Here are some suggestions I have from my own experience:
- Prazosin for nightmares. Got this from a psychiatrist, it's low risk (a repurposed blood pressure drug rather than a typical psych med), maybe helps with effects of alcohol use as well?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7572699/
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Hemp for sleep. I like to dry herb vape mine. Maybe at minimum this reduces how much alcohol you need.
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Specifically this herbal tea which has multiple sedating plants in it:
https://www.republicoftea.com/chamomile-lemon-herbal-tea/p/v00675/
- This one is very much YMMV, but have you tried playing around while in sleep paralysis in order to reduce your fear of it? This is extremely difficult at the beginning because it will physically feel like (and you will literally believe) you are about to die. But when you're in sleep paralysis, allow yourself to feel the complete all-consuming terror without reacting and struggling away from it. If you feel your heart going a million miles a minute, it isn't actually, it's an illusion. (I usually do not have the feeling of breathlessness, crushing, or suffocation, but I'd wager those are illusory as well, because actual inability to breathe would wake you up fully.) Then, as the fear recedes, and it will eventually - stay with me here - peel yourself out of your body. Or roll out of your body, or pop up out of it. Now the sleep paralysis is over and you are having a cool dream, congrats. Because of this method, I actually look forward to sleep paralysis. But again, YMMV, not all sleep paralysis is experienced the same way.
edit: Forgot one thing. When you peel out, you may feel very intense vibrations. These are also okay and cannot hurt you, so simply observe like you do the other fearful sensations (much much easier said than done)
The difference between mids and the high THC stuff you see nowadays is largely the absence of secondary cannabinoids like CBD. It is legal in most states to purchase hemp online, which is literally just weed with only cannabinoids other than THC. If you mix hemp and regular weed, you create a mid experience that you can titrate to your liking. Personally (as someone else prone to nightmares and sleep paralysis) I find a 10:1 hemp:weed ratio to be great for sleep.
Well, first of all, every morning my cat comes and sits on my chest and she's very very soft. And there have been a few times in my life where I've gotten to feel this transcendent, infinite love that is greater than anything else I've ever felt. So I feel inside for the love in my own heart, or I look at my cat, or I look at kind people still trying - and then I can imagine that thing I felt before, the big love under everything, is real and true and still there. I don't really understand yet how it is possible, given the suffering, but I imagine it anyway.
I'm very sensitive to cross contamination (celiac disease) so I have to be very selective about my supplement brands. I use Pure Encapsulations, Thorne, Xymogen. And for magnesium specifically you might be interested in Xymogen's Optimag Neuro - it's what I take for RLS and sleep - it's got magnesium l-threonate, malate, and glycinate so you can see more easily if any forms work well for you.
Here's the Animal Crossing guy I watch, for anyone curious. The video is long but there's an example of roleplay within the first three minutes.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=w_43tFfDy1s
Other things I like in the same vein are solo TTRPGs like this guy explains here/plays on his channel:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mf16KB9O3-g
And also solo roleplaying in video games:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=uNMxBSk3kRw
None of these are cool, sophisticated, high art. And yet every storyteller is completely sincere and creating in the moment for the intrinsic joy of watching the story unfold. That's why I love them.