I’ve written before about the dread anxiety that can overcome me when I wake from sleep.
Working with anxiety in a number of ways, I have managed to largely calm that morning dread down – but nowadays, what I am discovering is another morning entity: the Malistair.
As I surface from the dim waters of sleep, it is a dark and malodorous version of myself that greets the day.
No matter what mood I go to bed in, it seems that when I awake in the morning the least appetizing and most critical parts of me have lurched out and taken up residence in my brain. As I surface from the dim waters of sleep, it is a dark and malodorous version of myself that greets the day.
On reflection, I think it might be the same gremlins that, directed inwards, used to cause my morning dread. But now, – unfortunately for my husband, slumbering at my side, – they come out fighting. They are looking for targets to blame.
It’s a malevolent thing, the Malistair. And its mental clutches can extend well into mid-morning if I’m not careful.
Usually, that target is Daniel. I can lie there for substantial stretches of time loading my unhappiness and frustration onto his sleeping shoulders. I get out of bed and creep downstairs and fume silently at the unwashed plates, or his unfolded laundry (I mean they’re my plates and laundry as well but in the morning they are only his). The cold kitchen floor is his fault. As is the palaver of waiting for the kettle to boil.
For ages, I truly believed this bilious stream of feeling and half-formed thought. He’s so messy. He’s so wrong for me. I need to be on my own. He’s this, he’s that.
It’s a malevolent thing, the Malistair. And its mental clutches can extend well into mid-morning if I’m not careful.
Daniel himself has learned to ignore it. Or flag it up. Or if his “Malaniel” is up and about, we both steer clear of one another.
But it’s no way to live, is it?
Where does all that negativity come from?
One of the benefits of being a long-time Buddhist is that – by hook or by crook – you start to believe that the self is not so permanent.
I’m sure there was a time before I turned 30 that I fully bought into the myth of the permanent and substantial Alistair that extended through space/time in a continuous and coherent manner.
Long-term Buddhist brainwashing has flushed that illusion out of the works. I now, habitually, incline towards the sense that if I’m one thing in the morning, I might well be something different by the end of the day. It’s taken a long time and I often find myself still falling for a more fixed sense-of-Alistair. But, on the whole, I’m a bit more forgiving and fluid around my self-ideas.
But this Malistair is a habit that is hard to shake.
Where does all that negativity come from?
There are so many interesting theories about sleep and dreams that I’m sure one of them will cast light on the mystery. But my gut sense is that the sleep process – and especially dreaming – is all about future-proofing the organism’s survival. The dreaming brain combs through our experience, linking together clues to find the answer to one question: how can I thrive socially?
It’s important for future survival that we remember to put our trousers on.
Even though we don’t care to accept this – social situations (how we fit into the tribe) are the most important things in a human life. We thrive – evolutionarily – because we connect and work in groups. And so, each night, our trillionfold synaptical brain looks at each moment from a dozen different angles – some bizarre, some familiar – to crack the puzzle. How can this bit of information, this memory, this person, this situation be parsed to make us better at being social?
Shame, humiliation, embarrassment – (arriving at school in just your underpants, for example) – are the basic stuff of dreams because shame, humiliation and embarrassment are crucial signposts in a socialised world. It’s important for future survival that we remember to put our trousers on.
Likewise: fear, anger, lust, panic. All these things are the emotional forcefields that spring up to help us negotiate the social world successfully. They teach us where not to step in the minefield of relationships. This is why they are so useful (and prevalent) in dreaming. If your dream-self can negotiate a maze of shame, fear and panic unscathed, then perhaps our waking-self will be safer.
This might also explain why we often wake up pickled in a marinade of ‘negative’ emotions.
In running our dream-self, like a crash-test dummy, through an assault course of possible negative scenarios, we are left better-informed but also drenched in adrenalin and cortisol, the body’s stress hormones.
Now, we’re awake but unable to remember our dreams, we are left with a skinful of stress. And then our waking mind steps in to find scapegoats. Ourselves or others. Hence, the Malistair.
I have found extra succour in a little set of Buddhist rituals that help clear the Malistair more profoundly.
As always, the Rumplestiltskin effect of naming a baddie often obliterates its power. Recognising the Malistair’s murky presence often is enough to dispel its malice. But I have found extra succour in a little set of Buddhist rituals that help clear the Malistair more profoundly.
When I started Buddhist practice I was definitely not a fan of all the Tibetan bells and whistles: endless chanting, visualising four-faced, 12 armed deities and burning incense, ringing bells and offering cakes.
As I get older and less inclined to scrubbed-clean rationalism, I find myself drawn profoundly to the magic and ritual evocations of the vajrayana.
There’s a tiny tin cup of hot tea, some incense and a candle for Mahakala
It’s not for everyone and I rarely recommend it unless someone has a hankering. But first thing in the morning, in the winter darkness, before I’ve drunk a drop myself or made coffee for Daniel, I make a pot of tea for the various deities I’ve come to love.
There’s a tiny tin cup of hot tea, some incense and a candle for Mahakala, the fierce many-fanged protector deity beloved by so many Tibetans. In making the connection, I’m psychically feeding him all the stinky, murky aspects of Malistair. And he happily gobbles them up, transforming them – as all these beings do – into bliss-and-emptiness.
Next there’s a glass of equally hot tea, more incense and candlelight for Chenrezig the four-armed deity of loving-kindness and compassion who steps willingly into the space that Mahakala has just cleared. He’s the Christ-like figure of pure love and compassion that is so venerated in Tibet. It’s said the Dalai Lama is an emanation of his energy. And so – in the Newhaven darkness, through a few simple offerings, – I take the time to connect my mindstream with his.
It’s a welcome and literally blesséd relief after the morning Malistair.
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