Dreaming again

I’ve been having a lot of strange dreams lately. And when I say a lot I mean every single night. I’m not at the point of being afraid to go to sleep because of what my mind might whip up while I am in that state but it does make me wonder if I should cut back on the snack food before dinner.

Some of the dreams have been rather straightforward. I once again have found myself dreaming that it is finals week and I am woefully unprepared (and often sans pants). Now this isn’t really that surprising. When I’m stressed I have school and test related dreams. Given my whole job situation and my life being in flux the fact that I am dreaming about failing an important test doesn’t shock me in the least. My lack of pants can be accounted for by one simple fact. I really, really hate pants.

I had another one that, while bizarre, gives a great example as to the connection between your dream state and reality. I was dreaming that I was an astronaut in some insanely bizarre NASA project. Bizarre in the fact that we were essentially going to be launched via slingshot, go tumbling in the air, theoretically latch on to another aircraft and then parachute out of it. Maybe not the best idea in terms of space exploration but it still makes more sense than the International Space Station. Anyway, in the dream I chicken out of the mission because my left shoulder, which I injured over a decade ago and has never healed properly, was giving me all kinds of grief. So I woke up to find myself that the pain I felt in the dream was completely real as I was wincing from the discovery that I had twisted my shoulder in such a way that it wanted to distance itself from the rest of me. Not exactly the best way to wake up.

It is this last dream that bothered me the most. I spent much of the next day trying to figure it out. The dream was simple. I was with some friends and we had all gotten back to town and we were deciding which bar to go to. And I suggested, “Let’s go to that bar over there where I used to be a regular. The one by the train tracks close to The Brick where there are picnic tables outside and that small back bar.” Even though I was dreaming I went, “Wow, I really need to head back there. That place was a lot of fun.” Then I realized that place doesn’t exist.

I spent hours running through every bar that I had ever gone to trying to figure out what I was thinking of. While my dream bar had pieces of other bars to it (i.e. Corby’s did have picnic tables out back, some of the staff I remembered from other bars) it really was entirely invented by me. It dawned on me that I had dreamed of this bar before and could remember some of the dreams that involved this bar. This is rather frightening in a way. It seems as though I have created this entire dream landscape inside my head where there are places that only I know of and my dream bar is one of them. That just seems a little disconcerting to me. Apparently there are more parts to Morpheus’ realm than I am aware of.

Best of 120 Minutes: I think it would be best if we have a nice, mellow start to the week. Here is Bettie Serveert’s “Ray Ray Rain”, which is one of the sweetest songs that I’ve ever heard. It’s like an aural sorbet. Hopefully it will lead us all to a pleasant week.