I’m watching Severance and it’s making my dreams weird. At least, I think that’s the culprit.
Since Election Day in 2024, I’ve missed smoking like never before.
I smoked cigarettes for maybe two years fifteen years ago. I smoked while I was at college in Missouri, when I dropped out the New Jersey taxes were enough for me to quit. I couldn’t afford it anymore.
This is not a very long time to smoke. I have friends who’ve smoked for decades now, some still do and some have quit. I know it gets harder to quit the longer you have the habit. I’m sure my quitting was easier than some. As I discussed last week, I really am afraid of stealing valor. I rarely call myself a former smoker. I barely smoked!
But I smoked enough. Enough that since I quit, I’ve always missed smoking. If it were suddenly not hazardous to my health, I’d start again tomorrow. I’d start again today! As I type this I can feel the craving in my shoulders, in my neck. I love the feeling of taking a drag of a cigarette. Also, I’m sorry, but the truth is it looks cool. Not vaping, that shit doesn’t look cool to me.
But lighting a cigarette? Come on. It can be a form of flirting, an act of relaxation. It was my favorite way to talk to strangers outside of a bar. It’s fun! It’s cool! It’ll kill you, don’t do it! But let’s not deny the aesthetics. Come on.
So yes, I’ve always missed smoking. I’ve occasionally have allowed myself a drunken cigarette in the intervening years, but it just doesn’t work well for me. For the next several weeks I’ll think about whether or not I could just buy one pack to keep in my car just in case, just in case what?
My brain can’t handle an ounce of permission here. As I type this, I wonder if some of my friends who read this will stop offering me drunk cigarettes, an occasion I rarely encounter these days anyway. Do I want them to stop offering? I don’t know. I miss smoking.
For a long time this missing has been a low, ignorable hum. It becomes louder when I’m surrounded by smokers, sure, but even then, it’s whatever. I don’t smoke. Haven’t for years! It’s not my problem.
Something about this most recent Election Day changed that. I honestly don’t know why that is. My brain was just searching for a coping mechanism and this is what it landed on. Making that low hum of missing louder, more obnoxious. Fine.
This week, I keep dreaming about smoking. I don’t love this.
I often have very realistic dreams. Sometimes I dream about getting tattoos and wake up disappointed that that tattoo doesn’t exist. The other night I dreamt about cooking, and woke up disappointed that I’d still have to do that meal prep myself. My dream self has no follow through. Now I keep dreaming about smoking. Maybe this is a brilliant hack. My little subconscious is getting a break, my dream self is silencing the hum of missing with the satisfaction of the act. I wake up with my lungs unharmed and a bit of jealousy and anger towards my dream self. Fair enough.
Do you watch Severance? It’s so good, so creepy. I think watching the show has made my dreams more unsettling and sinister in tone.
This is temporary and worth it. I couldn’t tell you the last time I loved a scripted television show. I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched one! It’s usually not my thing.
But I keep thinking about how this dream version of myself that smokes feels closer to Severance than my other dreams. It’s not the creepiness that’s similar to the show, it’s the rebellion. The autonomy. My dream self feels a bit like an innie, desperate for something it’s not going to get.
The show brings up a lot of other things for me (and everyone else who watches it). I’ll wait until the end of the season to say more, I’ll avoid spoiling anything in the meantime. But I’m not interested in writing about the mysteries of the show. Reddit has that more than covered. It’s very fun to read the theories and come up with my own, but that’s not what I really think I have to offer.
I keep thinking about the ways we’re already severed. CPTSD feels like its own form of severance in a way, and I’m going to stop there. The rest of that thought contains spoilers.
But it’s fun to love a show and think about things! It’s the same way I feel about movies, even movies I don’t love. It’s the same way I feel about books when I get around to finally finishing them. Art is good! I’m going to go find more of it. I hope you find some in your day, too.
I’ll see you next week, when I’ll have one free and one paid newsletter. If you’re interested in buying me a monthly latte to support my writing, I’m offering a 15% discount to celebrate the launch of my paid content!
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