This morning when I got up to pee I did something I’ve never done before.

Still sleepy, I had every intention of going back to sleep after peeing so I left my earplugs in.

Normally I take out my earplugs for safety when I climb down my ladder out of my loft; I tend to think it’s best not to impede my senses when climbing down from upon high on a rickety ladder. Maybe you don’t need to be able to hear in order to climb up and down a ladder, but you *do* need *balance*, and I’m not convinced earplugs don’t have the capacity to upset your inner ear’s balancing functions.

ANYWAY … I managed to easily descend the ladder even half-asleep with my earplugs stuffed deep into my ears, went pee, and then hit the bong, hoping it would give me another hour or three of dream-free sleep.

OH MY GOD the sound was TRIPPY! The bubbling sounded like it was coming from jackhammers and woodpeckers on our metal roof, but submerged UNDERWATER somewhere in a pool attached to the back of my skull. It was loud, but in a muffled therapeutic way. It really startled me at first because it sounded unfamiliar, otherwordly, and as if it was coming from a location and direction I did not know existed contained in such a small place: some water-bubble world behind and around my head.

THC is psychoactive and can result in perceptual distortions and even hallucinations. Sounds SOUND different, and, if you’re like me and a bunch of other neurodivergent, schizophrenic, or otherwise differently-wired people you may wind up hearing sounds that do not even exist when under the influence of THC. When I smoke or consume too much, I frequently hear things like police sirens, microwaves beeping, helicopters, distant music, and sometimes even voices.

But this is not why I heard the underwater-jackhammer-woodpeckers this morning. It was just the combination of normal water-bong bubble-noises altered by the earplugs. It was a fun little surprise dreamy-percussive-sound experience.

*****

Did I manage to go back to sleep without dreaming? Well … I did fall back to sleep, but I wound up dreaming very vividly of fucking a younger man who used to work under me decades ago when I was a micro-boss in an office environment.