To Sleep Perchance to NOT Dream

Maiden at Texas Renaissance Festival in Todd Mission, Texas Copyright by WyoJones. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Last Monday I mentioned I’ve been a “little” stressed, well, sometimes that stress spills over into my dreams. I’ve sometimes wondered if my dreams are complicated and strange because I have a huge imagination, or if they are complicated and strange, because I’m complicated and strange. Or if that’s just how dreams are.

My stress or anxiety dreams seem to fall into these general (crazy) categories:

Water. These dreams started while we were living in New Orleans, most of which is below sea level. I’m thinking there is/was a connection. My “favorite” water dream is the one where family I haven’t seen for years and years shows up unexpectedly to stay. While I try to figure out where to put them, we all sit in the living room with water lapping at our knees. And my dream people all seem to think that is perfectly normal.

Climbing. I don’t much like these dreams, because they involve me—and a family member—climbing paths, stairs, roofs—anything high and the level of difficulty increases until someone falls. I wake up before the splat.

Bear. (My family calls these my bear-mares) I haven’t had one of these for a long time, but expect them to reappear when we move to Wyoming. There’s not a lot to say about them. It’s bears coming at me and me trying to get away. I’ve never gotten eaten, but sometimes those critters get close before I wake up…

Performance. I don’t get these as much, but I used to get them a lot when I was taking piano lessons and they pop up again every now and then. I was nearsighted (until Lasik), so these dreams are that a) I forgot I had to perform at a piano recital and haven’t practiced and b) I don’t have my contacts in, so can’t see music and the keys are dark anyway. Sometimes these had a “twist” where I tried to put my contacts in and they kept getting bigger and bigger. And recently I had a dream where I had signed up to sing at a club. Like perform at an open mike event. Because I’m known for my singing. Not.

Of course, there are your basic, Back in school, test today, didn’t study dreams. Those are so classic and wide spread that Val Kilmer has one in Top Secret. It’s called the “back to school torture scene” on YouTube. Just click the link if you’ve ever been so relieved to wake up that real life is better. Even if it involves torture.

And then there’s the dream where you wake up wondering what was going on inside your head last night. I actually dreamed that the hubs and I flew to Australia for a week, planning to stay with a friend I hadn’t asked. Apparently I’ve decided to return the “dream favor” to those people in my head who showed up at my house unannounced.

I don’t remember a lot about my recent mental institution dream where I’m locked in a room with a guy about to go bat crap crazy. I’m not sorry about that. Just glad I got out before it happened.

So I know there’s a lot going on in there during the day when I’m awake and aware, but seriously? Why can’t my brain let me rest while I’m asleep? Once I looked up the meaning of symbols in dreams, but honestly, those freaked me out more than the dreams. I think my brain just likes to mess with me. I got a cool fan letter from a guy who told me I had the most original version of time travel he’d ever read (in Steamrolled) and that was “some brain I had there.” I was delighted, but also thought, yeah, you ought to try living with it. It’s seriously crazy in there.

So how are things inside your head at night? Do you remember your dreams or wake with the impression you did dream, but can’t remember details? You know I love comments so much that I pick a favorite to receive my monthly AnaBanana gift basket ($25 value).  Recipient is announced the first blog post of the new month.

Perilously yours,

Pauline

P.S. Since I mentioned Steamrolled in a post about my crazy dreams, you know I had. The first part is FREE. Or you can grab the whole, huge book.