Dream Me Up, Scottie!

Okay, that last post was a total cop out, but I've had a nap now and will soldier on.

Oddly, enough, even though I only napped for an hour, I hopped right into the REM stage and actually dreamed. I dreamed my sister was living on a farm and I was talking to the ducks and geese in the pond. I walked to the yard, then came back to the pond and noticed it had drifted about 10 feet closer, covering a large portion of the lawn. I told the ducks, "Wow! You guys get high tides!" Because apparently, in dreamland, ponds experience tides.  (And, ducks and geese will listen to you.)  Periodically throughout the dream I would also find myself in front of a computer.  This can probably attest to my doing the same just before falling asleep... trying to dream up a blog idea no less.  Mission accomplished!

I have the blessing/curse of a very vivid and active dream life.  My worst ones being about spiders and snakes.  My most recurring (and also topping the worst list) would be the one where I'm working at this video store that I really did work at in my teens and early twenties. Part-way through the dream I always realized that I don't work there anymore and want to leave, but there are customers still in the store. I keep locking the doors, but they keep walking through them.  I lock all four deadbolts and again, no use. I try dialing 911, but they keep telling me it's a wrong number.  I try setting the alarm, but keep forgetting the alarm code.  Do I just walk out with no one to mind the register?  I check the schedule and they're still putting my name on it.  Don't they realize I quit over a decade ago?  I'm going to quit again as soon as someone shows up to resign to formally.  Then, of course, I wake up before that can happen. 

I used to have a similar dream where I was still in high school and I don't know any of the lessons, I'm not sure where my classes or locker are and I'm just sitting in random classes.  I'd realize again, partway through, that "Oh, I'm a grown-up and don't need to be here." The rest of the dream is me trying to figure out if I'd be able to just up and leave and drive out of the parking lot without the parking attendant trying to stop me. 

Then, there's always the "I can't find a toilet, but have to pee" dream.  Every time I bring this one up, people either instantly relate, "You too! I hate that one! Was there a bathroom with glass walls in yours?" (Answer usually "yes".)  Or, they have no idea what I'm talking about, but will feel comfortable asking me if I wake up with a wet bed after these. (Let me clearly state, the answer to that one is always "NO!")

I even still remember my first nightmare as clear as a well-watched home movie.  I was in kindergarten when I had it. In it, I was riding the bus home from school and everything was in black and white.  A friend (that only exists in dreamland) and I saw a man sitting under a tree. He was eating a dandelion.  The yellow of the dandelion was the only color in the dream. (I'm still impressed how avante garde my five-year-old subconscious was.) My friend quietly told me he was a murderer.  She didn't use the word "murderer" though, she used some other word that in dreamworld means "murderer". (Sometimes dreamworld speaks its own dialect.) This man kept popping up in the scenery of the entire bus ride home. He looked like that cartoon character that flies the biplane with the grumbling dog as his side-kick.  It appeared the bus driver was able to finally dodge him. But, to be safe, she dropped me off at my driveway instead of at my usual bus stop on the corner.  All I had to do was run up the driveway and into the house.  I make it to the porch, where I find my cat, Snoopy, cleaning his leg with his tongue.  I'm home safe.  Snoopy's fur suddenly unzips and out pops the cartoon murderer with a dandelion stuck between his teeth.  I scare myself awake.  [And, scene.]

My good dreams are great though.  I'd love to expand upon that but, as luck would have it, those are the ones that fade from memory within the hour.  *Sad face* I know they're very colorful and real though.  Usually heartbreaking to wake up from, whatever they are.  But, mostly my dreams are just plain weird.

When I was younger and more ambitious I used to keep a notebook by the nightstand so I could scribble these funny dreams down before they'd disappear.  I found this notebook in the basement a few months ago. The most I can say is, it's good for a laugh.

Here's one excerpt:

"...There's a van in the driveway. (My brother) bought (my sister) a van because her car didn't work. She didn't really like it though... In the backyard there's a buffalo nailed to a tree by it's tail. I asked what it's doing there and they tell me some guy came that morning, hammered it there and said he'd be back for it later.  They thought he hunted it and that it was dead, but I saw it open its eyes.  Then, in the front yard, there's a moose hooked to a tree on the cat's leash. (My brother) has decided that it's our new pet.  I started to take it for a walk, but there was a skunk that was going to spray us, so I just ran back home. (Home in these dreams, is always my childhood home.)  Suddenly, I'm walking on a dirt road. I keep getting lost and finding weird things.  Like an eye doctor's office made of cardboard. I climbed up on it and it fell down... At some point in this dream me and (my sister) took a trip to Africa. We went with someone else... it might have been Joe McIntyre because he was in the dream too.  We kept asking him, "Why aren't you on that show anymore?" -- I guess he was on some TV show. Then we were being chased through this palace, like in Aladdin. It had really cool rooms, but the whole kingdom was chasing us for some reason.  We ran across the lawn and got away." 

Yes, that was all one dream from one night in 1998. Phew!

I used to be overly analytical about these things.  Especially after I had died twice in two separate dreams after I had heard that was impossible.  Or, when my teeth kept falling out in them.  Or, when I kept going blind.  Or, when I'd wake up continuously with long flowing Rapunzel hair, only to wake up once more... this time for real.  None of the dream symbols I'd find in books made any sense in comparison to my life, so I stopped trying to make any sense of such silliness.

I've definitely had those warning dreams. Where something happens in a dream, that then happens in real life.  But, besides those rare ones... who can say? 

Maybe strange dreams are just meant for entertainment.  Maybe they're our muses or the sign of an overly bizarre imagination.  Maybe we can flip the channel, like a bad movie when we get bored, and so can travel from Michigan to Africa to Saudi Arabia in one night.

All I know is, I'm about to go empty my bladder before I crawl into bed.  And, then I'm going to try not think of spiders.