She's Buying a Stairway

I'm back to sleeping poorly. I get in these cycles where my brain hums along with the ceiling fan motor, where sleep is restless, brief and full of vivid emotions and images. The alarm screams me into a morning tense, bleary and exhausted. I haven't been getting to bed at any good hour (just in the past five days it's been something like 2:30am, 4am, 1:30am, 1am, and 3am) and since I seem to wake up at the same time regardless of the hour of slumber my body is confused and can't find its beacon for rest. And the brain keeps humming along.

I have only one reoccurring dream and it involves what is supposed to be the curved servant's staircase in my great aunt's house. This staircase is made of heavy wood and is tucked into what could be a closet space; it is confined and sturdy. The staircase that appears in my dreams is almost always free-standing with no rails and infinite space to the sides of it. I have to climb down this staircase and it paralyzes me every time. In this last incarnation I sat down on my butt and wanted to slowly slide my way down the steps instead of trying to walk them. The thought of being upright on their lip was too much. I never make it down the staircase, I always wake up shaking.
Some people dream of attackers, rabid bears, wars: I dream of staircases.