Chloroquine Dreams

A brief note on how the mind plays tricks...
I´ve been warned of the side effects of malaria treatment. In particular mefloquine is so bad that many people wake up with night sweats and refuse to take their medication because of persistent nightmares. Chloroquine is supposed to be much milder. Generally no one complains. I´m taking chloroquine although there aren´t mosquitoes up here (in Xela) because I do hope to do some traveling and the jungle most definitely has malaria. So, Monday I took my second weekly dose. My blood must have been racing with chloroquine because the following night I had the stranges dream...

In the dream I was traveling. I was staying in a dorm/ building with many other people coming and going. But strange things happened to my room. I would notice one day that my picture or my clock was no longer a picture or clock, but rather a picture- or clock-shaped mass of substance. Then it would change and grow. The picture would produce hands like roots, reaching out into the room. Something on my dresser became an indeterminate pile of goo with a dozen mouths slowly opening and closing. It wasn´t menacing, but still disconcerting. I would toss these things out my window since they were no longer of any use to me, but it was a little disturbing.

I woke from this dream thinking "Someone really ought to do something about that indeterminat goo" but I wasn´t frightened, surprisingly in retrospect. As long as it stays at this level I´m quite content to experience dreams more surreal than any I´ve ever had before. Perhaps the multiplication of images (hands, mouths) is the result of some sort of short circuit in my mind, the chloroquine leading to redundancies of imagination. In any case, it´s kind of fascinating! Plus I won´t get malaria!

[More about my various travels after dance class. Adios!]