I woke up at three in the morning again last Tuesday, sweating and swatting at thin air because I thought a swarm of flies was crawling over my face. It was the third night in a row. If you have ever had these dreams, you know they aren’t just annoying; they feel dirty, like something is rotting right under your nose. I spent the whole morning drinking coffee and trying to shake off that sticky, itchy feeling. I finally decided I had to figure out why my brain was obsessing over these little pests and, more importantly, how to make it stop before I lost my mind from lack of sleep.
First, I sat down and really thought about what flies do in the real world. They hang around trash, they ruin a good meal, and they are constant distractions that you can’t quite catch. I started looking back at my past week and realized my life felt exactly like that. I had these tiny, nagging problems that I kept ignoring—a pile of unpaid bills on the counter, a weird tension with a guy at work, and a leaky faucet I promised to fix a month ago. In the dream world, those little stresses weren’t just thoughts anymore; they turned into buzzing flies. I realized the dream was telling me that my “mental house” was getting messy and it was attracting scavengers.
What the buzz is actually about
I started digging into the patterns. For me, the flies meant I felt guilty about something I was letting “rot.” It’s usually not a big tragedy, just a bunch of small things that add up until they feel overwhelming. Here is what I noticed through my own trial and error:
- The Distraction Factor: Sometimes the flies in my dreams were just buzzing around my ears. This happened when I was trying to focus on a big project but kept getting interrupted by phone notifications and emails. My brain used the flies to represent how much those interruptions were actually bugging me.
- The Feeling of Decay: If the flies were landing on food in the dream, it usually meant I felt like a good opportunity was being wasted because I was too lazy to act on it.
- Hidden Enemies: On a few occasions, I felt like the flies were biting. That’s when I realized I had people in my social circle who were just “feeding” off my energy without giving anything back.
Once I identified what the flies were, I had to figure out how to kick them out of my head. You can’t just buy a dream version of bug spray, so I had to change things in my actual waking life to see if it would reflect in my sleep. I took a very practical approach to cleaning up my mental space.
How I stopped the dreams for good
I didn’t go to a therapist or buy fancy crystals. I just started “cleaning.” I spent one full Saturday tackling every single small task I had been putting off. I paid the bills, I sent the awkward emails I was avoiding, and I finally fixed that faucet. It’s funny how a physical chore can clear up a mental fog. I also started a “brain dump” habit. Before I hit the pillow, I grab a cheap notebook and scribble down every single thing that is annoying me or making me feel anxious. I tell myself, “Okay, the trash is out for the night,” and I close the book.
The first night after I did this, I still had a dream about a fly, but there was only one, and I swatted it easily. By the second night, the buzzing was gone completely. I’ve learned that if those flies start coming back, it’s a massive red flag that I’m letting my life get cluttered again. I don’t wait for a swarm anymore; as soon as I feel that “buzzing” anxiety during the day, I handle the problem right then and there. It’s a rough way to learn a lesson, but hey, if my subconscious has to act like a pest control officer to get me moving, then so be it. I’d rather deal with a few chores than spend another night fighting imaginary bugs in the dark.
