Cancer 64

Here I am, back in the chemo ward, the usual array of chemicals dripping into my body. This is only my third go of possibly 12, but it is a bit of a drag. The best bit is talking to the nurses, finding out about their lives, and the banter that flies around. Fortunately it is neither woke nor politically correct, so everyone is happy. Last week I found out that my baseline CT scan, taken 2-3 months after my operation, showed no further cancerous growths. With the chemo, perhaps they will continue to be kept in check.

One change that has occurred in the last week or so is that I have started dreaming again. Before all this I regularly had feature-length dreams, better than most of the Hollywood output, where I would often have some control over events, and I would sometimes wake up, go for a waz, go back to bed and restart the same dream. I was often at different levels of consciousness, from deep sleep to semi-wakefulness. During the latter I had more control. My favourite example of changing a dream was where a group of us were in the mountains, walking along, and someone came up behind me and drove a pick into my head, killing me. Somehow I managed to rewind the dream a few minutes, so when it approached the same point I turned round and gradde the pick as the person was raising it to kill me. Great fun.

After my operation I stopped dreaming, or at least stopped remembering them. Recently I started having dreams, but couldn’t remember them beyond the first few moments of waking. In the last few nights I have become a better dreamer again, exerting some control over my characters in the dreams, and remembering them for a little longer – though last night’s epic has gone now.

One study did show that those who have these lucid dreams have a more effective pre-frontal cortex, which possibly relates to the general evidence regarding higher levels of creativity, better motor skills, improved problem solving, and less anxiety. I don’t think it correlates with susceptibility to bowel cancer, though there may be certain third factors that link to both. Use your creativity to work that one out.