Overthinking: In Case of Monsters

Overthinkers get a lot of flack for overthinking, generally by non-overthinkers. Most of the rhetoric boils down to, “Overthinking leads to anxiety, less happiness, and 'useless' trains of thought. Shape up and quit making the rest of us uncomfortable.” I however believe overthinking not useless. 

When I overthink, I'm trying to figure out what to do about something that's already made me anxious. It is soothing to have a plan.

When I was child, I knew that monsters were make-believe. That didn't stop me from having a nightmare about whatever I saw on T.V. It didn't matter if it was a Scooby-Doo villain or a stop-action puppet of a cyclops. In the circuits of my sleeping brain, they got nastier, smarter and hunted me and my family through my home. (Also, my dream-self seemed have the critical thinking skills of a horror movie extra.)

Needless to say, preteen Loren would deeply regret thumbing through the library's folktales anthologies - vampires, fey, and werewolves, oh my. Nightmares gained a new level of 'ick' when I was the one bewitched into hunting my family. 

The worst bit about childhood nightmares is that after a while you dread bedtime. It's  not complicated logic. Bad stuff happens when you fall asleep. You want to avoid bad stuff. Unfortunately, thinking about this while laying in bed is the equivalent of daring yourself not to think about pink elephants. You get yet more nightmares.

The adults in my life saw I was suffering and tried to help. The most common advice was the lucid dreamer trick. “It's your dream. You should be able to control it.” Unfortunately, my brain never has done things the easy way. (Most children would just turn the werewolf into a puppy or summon Superman to come and drop kick the monster into the sun.)

I'm not quiet sure how it happened, but I would eventually find a way to effect the dreams. If monsters were coming into my house, I would make it a war of attrition. 

Superpowers and magic swords tended to fade in and out of reach, but the family kitchen always had counterpart in those chased-through-the-house dreams. There was garlic in the spice rack, plated silverware in the sideboard, and a good heavy rolling pin in the drawer. I was now armed and angry.

Unfortunately, having a weapon doesn't turn you into Tiffany Aching or Kevin McCallister. Most of the the time, I still ended up monster chow. I'd trip or dodge left when I should have gone right. When I woke up, I kept track of 'dumb things that didn't work.'

In the case of werewolf bites, hiding the bite or cutting the infected limb off was a dumb move. Running out into the park to handle it yourself was a also dumb move. Trying to get help from unreasonable dream-adults was a dumb move. (It seemed only my parents were smart enough to know the difference between a real emergency and playing make-believe.)

I also had mental tally of things that worked. Werewolves didn't survive decapitation, being set on fire, and other violent solutions. I expanded into vampires (like werewolves but with garlic), evil witches (climb a tree where they can't see you and then drop something heavy on them), and even ghosts (get a high powered vacuum or the garage fan.)

While I never got around to writing down a formal 'In Case of' list, just having a Plan helped. I'd been through storm watches and building evacuations and had learned standing around clueless just made things scarier. 

The next logical step was to start planning things out before bedtime. When I heard about something scary, I'd stop and brainstorm what to do about it. You don't make up fire drills while the building's smoking, right?

Eventually, the nightmares stopped, getting replaced by the teen phobias of giving a speech half dressed or finding out you're failing a class you've never attended. The lists stayed. My habit of analyzing things that scare me stayed. I've learned that can be scared by something, but don't have to live scared.

(I also learned that if you think about monsters long enough and from enough angles, you can disarm some of your fear – either by acceptance or gallows humor. I've decided if I ever contract lycanthropy, I'm getting my teeth pulled then going to have a concrete dog run built. If the undead apocalypse breaks out, I'll team up with other survivors until a inevitable but unforeseen betrayal turns me into zombie chow.)