It has been some time since I updated you on my curious course of living with Parkinson’s Disease.

The stiffness, funny gait, handwriting reduced to little more than a microscopic scribble, my voice hovering somewhere just above a breathy whisper, and the odd freeze when trying to navigate all persist to varying degrees.

I consider myself very fortunate. Four years into this journey, my symptoms have advanced only slightly—annoying at times, but manageable. Tremors and all, I remain up to the challenge.

My recent discovery is how quickly my brain achieves REM (Rapid Eye Movement) level of sleep.

Answering the Parkinson’s fatigue often prompts me to close my eyes for brief naps. I am talking about that state that I call the “subway nod.” You have all witnessed that person with their head bobbing, clearly asleep, and then their eyes pop open from the jostling of the train.

It doesn’t take but a moment, and I descend into REM dream state. It doesn’t matter where or when, as soon as I nod off, I am in dreamland.  Trying to fight off sleep at inopportune times (at my desk, reading, or just relaxing) is how I discovered the RAPID REM. Coming back to consciousness, I still carrying the dream state into my reality. That phenomenon is a mix of confusion, embarrassment, and understanding.

There is no rhyme or reason to the dream content other than it seems to be complete scenes for an epic movie—something I have written about before. Dreams in Parkinson’s world are full color, populated by identifiable people and clear dialogue, and always memorable. The reality that the REM happens almost instantaneously was, pardon the pun, eye-opening.

As my eyes close, I never know where I will be, who I will see, or what will be said. I just know that the big screen on the inside of my eyelids is ready to project at a moment’s notice.