Smoking cessation & cigarette dream oddities.

Last week, not long before leaving for San Diego for winter break, I decided to stop smoking. I had never made a habit of it, and I was not addicted. I have not had any trouble stopping–no cravings as such, although I’m still adjusting to the idea that somebody else breaking out a pack of cigarettes doesn’t mean that I’m going to smoke one.

The only real oddity in this whole process is that since I’ve arrived in San Diego I’ve had dreams in which I was smoking cigarettes, and woken up thinking I was no longer a non-smoker. Yesterday I was hanging out with an old friend from high school who chain-smokes pretty much non-stop, and although I declined offers of smokes from him, last night I had a dream in which I was driving around San Diego with him again, this time smoking his Marlboros with him. The night before, I had a dream that I was back at the UA, in my dorm hall, smoking what I thought were my Kools, inside. I spent a great deal of time and effort trying to avoid RAs and hide the fact that I was indeed smoking cigarettes in the dorm hall, which in reality would probably put me in about the same category as a murderer-rapist at the UA.

So what are your cigarette dream stories? I seem to recall reading that this was common in smoking cessation.

I quit smoking 5 weeks ago and I’ve had several dreams where I was smoking. The dreams are not terribly strange. In them, I’m usually doing the things that most trigger my cigarette craving. Driving, talking on the phone, or hanging out with friends that smoke. The weirdest one was probably the one where I was smoking at my desk at work.

When I wake up from them I have the strongest urge to rush to the convienence store and buy a freaking carton of smokes. So far I’ve been able to resist. Hopefully I keep it up!

I never had any dreams. I was a two and a half pack a day smoker for twenty years–quit on August 19, 2003, 8:40 p. m. I had severe cravings and RAGE. I would SCREAM BLOODY FUICKING MURDER in the privacy of my car on my 31 mile drive to work, stay quiet and to myself at work, then SCREAM on the way home, do push-ups or sling weights until I was exhausted, then sleep. No dreams. After a couple weeks I calmed down.

Dreams seem better than the severe aching and longing I experienced as I went through withdrawal.

Sir Rhosis