Nightmare on Sugar Street

COVID 19 – I hope that you and your families are staying safe during the coronavirus. Please take care.

Nocturnal hypoglycemia refers to low blood sugar at night time. Although potentially dangerous, if somebody wakes you up it can be fixed with three teaspoons of sugar down the hatch to get levels back to normal.

I recently had an experience that made me wonder whether my dreams had something to do with nocturnal hypoglycemia…

As much as I would love to tell you about my happy dreams, such as, being gifted a golden bathtub of Belgium chocolate sea shells by a pelican, this was my dream last night:

It is dark. It is cold.  I watch as this man prods a gun into the pinkish belly of my dog. He becomes greatly angered by the dog’s reluctance to show weakness. Not even a whimper escapes her K9 lips (do dogs have lips?).  He squeezes the trigger. Tears stream down my face and at this very moment my glucose monitor sounds with the urgent alarm. My blood sugar level was too low and was getting lower. I then demolished a strategically positioned snack and rolled back over to find out what happened to my dog and perhaps change her fate.

I tell you this because I later found out that the low blood sugar, or nocturnal hypoglycemia, at night did in fact relate to my experience of vivid nightmares. It is a symptom of this. How interesting. I am fascinated by psychology so the science of dreaming has occupied my mind in the past. Who would have known that dreaming and diabetes would relate to each other?

I am happy to say that my dog was in perfect health when I awoke. I gave her many extra pats on the head that day.

Glucose upon publishing: 4.8 mmol/L

Chocolate Labrador: