March 18, 2021 – Dreams, what do they mean?

What is it about dreams? They aren’t even ‘real’ and yet they can make us feel so much. I awoke this morning overwhelmed by guilt and all because of a dream. Sometimes the emotions I experience as a result of a good or bad dream can ‘color’ my entire day. Why is that? It’s just a bunch of stuff our brains conjure up when we’re sleeping. I don’t get it. If you’ve surmised by now that I am feeling particularly troubled due to a dream I just had, you are correct. Once again, I found myself in another man’s arms. When I do have these types of dreams, usually John Mayer is the prime suspect. Justin Bieber has also recently entered the picture and I cannot begin to tell you how much that disturbs me! The guy is the same age as my own children and he’s married and he’s tiny. I respect his talent but I have never once seen him on TV or the internet or in a magazine and swooned, not once. The dream I had last night? A new guy entered the picture. He was gorgeous and already had a girlfriend but he was willing to throw it all away so he could be with yours truly.

Huh? Yes, somehow I started showing up at his place and his current girlfriend wasn’t thrilled in the least about it. She was actually pretty vocal about how unhappy she was with the situation, until he ditched her. Once she was out of the picture, he wanted to take what we had to ‘the next level’; however, there was a ‘tiny’ problem. I was still married. Yes, in my dream, I knew I had a ‘better half’ and even though every fiber of my being wanted to push that aside in order to justify doing the horizontal mambo with Mr. Desirable, I couldn’t. In fact, right before I woke up, Mr. Desirable and I were standing at the top of a stairwell, mere seconds away from hopping in the sack. I was so conflicted but I still had the compunction to resist his advances and insisted on speaking with my husband. I had to know whether what my husband and I had was worth saving before I could move forward with a clear conscience. Oh my gosh, the guilt! I felt like I had actually committed adultery when I woke up this morning.

Along with trying to process the guilt I was feeling, I was trying to understand some of the weird sh*t that I envisioned in the dream. Why were the countertops in this guy’s luxurious apartment literally covered in heaping piles of dishes? I know he’d prepared a lavish meal in his attempts to wine and dine me, but was it necessary to use two week’s worth of dishes, pots and pans, and cutlery? Why so many and why didn’t he clean them? And why was there a long trail of smashed berries on the carpet when I walked through his livingroom? More importantly, where did he even come from and why was he so interested in me? He was strong and muscular, around 6′ 2″, with light brown skin and short black hair, probably 35-40 years old, with a youthful, roundish face, and easy-on-the-eyes. Oddly enough, during the final segment of the dream, I remember how his face appeared altered as if someone had removed the lower part of his jaw and teeth and replaced them with someone else’s (in a perfect square shape).

Good grief! If the dreams aren’t about love interests, they always seem to be about relationships with friends or family, growing a beard, toilets, going back to school, or public transportation. Do you dream about toilets, too? Geesh, I have so many of them! When I was younger, whenever I dreamt about toilets, I didn’t hesitate to use them. Inevitably, I would wake up in a soiled bed. When I dream about toilets now, as much as I want to use them and desperately as I try to find a suitable one, I never do or can. There is always something that stops me. Whenever I do happen upon a toilet, there’s a ‘problem’. The most common issue I come across is that there’s no door on the stall and someone is standing in the bathroom (right next to the stall). I refuse to pee in front of people. I realize it’s a luxury that not all of us have but after having to do it when I was in the military (for random drug testing), if I have a choice in the matter, it’s not going to happen.

I am actually grateful that my brain takes these measures to prevent me from using the toilet because if it didn’t, I probably would end up wetting the bed (like I did when I was younger). I wouldn’t enjoy waking up to that and neither would my husband (I can assure you). The ‘beard’ dreams? Yikes! I have so many. In them, the hair on my face and neck is so long that I could braid it. In my dreams, I’ll feel across my face until I come across a longish hair. When I do, I yank it out and immediately recoil in horror when I measure it and find it’s anywhere from 4-6 inches in length. And there’s never just one! The more I yank them out, the more they reproduce. It’s like those films when someone cuts the head off a serpent or dragon and two more emerge in its place. The fact that both my grandmothers had excessive facial hair probably doesn’t help my paranoia. I remember one always shaving her chin and the other one had such long whiskers that she resembled a cat.

The dreams about public transportation baffle me. It doesn’t matter what I take, whether it’s a bus, train, or plane, I always miss it. I should add that in these particular dreams with a ‘transportation theme’, it’s never just me, it’s my entire family. Why are we always late? I try so hard to make sure everybody has their bags packed and that we leave on time but it never happens! My kids always drag their feet and no matter how stressed out I get while repeatedly reminding them that we have to leave immediately or we’re going to miss the bus, train, or plane, it doesn’t make a difference at all. If we ever do manage to leave on time, something else throws a wrench in the works, like ending up in a traffic jam on the way to the airport or taking the wrong bus. In real life, I always arrive in plenty of time and when the bus pulls up to the curb or the train pulls into the station or the plane pulls up to the gate, I confidently ‘climb aboard’ and take a seat. There are never any issues.

Whenever I have dreams about going back to school, it’s not a college campus that I find myself transported to, it’s an elementary or high school. I’m an adult but I always wind up back in grade school. I already went through that hell once, why must I continually relive it? These dreams are even more stressful than the ones about transportation because the threat of not achieving my diploma is ever-present, and yet I do not seem to care until it’s too late to do anything about it. I blow off my classes and don’t complete my homework until I realize that the final day of the semester is the next day and then I go into full-blown panic mode. Again, this is nothing like my reality. I was a total nerd in school. Not turning in homework or blowing off classes? That never happened! More often than not, I was the first person to turn in my assignments. Sometimes, I’d even stay after class and finish the assigned work before I went home for the day. These dreams don’t make a bit of sense to me.

Despite how much the other dream ‘themes’ I mentioned impact me, the dreams that usually linger long after I wake are the ones about relationships. To be more specific, they’re about relationships that I no longer have. In the last two weeks, I’ve had at least 4 significant dreams about a friend I used to have. I swear to God she’s haunting me (even though she’s still alive). We were friends for many, many years but her odd behavior became intolerable after a point. I miss her to a degree but I cannot handle the ‘crazy’, it’s out of control. I also dream a lot about my sister ‘Diabolical Debbie’ and my brother ‘The Kraken’. I no longer have a relationship with either of them, but in my dreams they are nothing like how they are in reality. They are gentle, thoughtful, kind, forgiving, reasonable and rational, and we always have a lovely time together. When I wake up, I always feel incredibly sad because that’s so unlike the way it is in ‘real life’. I don’t know, I find it all so confusing.

I’ve heard that dreams are a way our brains try to work through things. Who can say? I used to dream I could fly and I no longer have those. That really bums me out because I really enjoyed being able to lift off the ground and soar to my heart’s delight! I also used to dream I was getting chased by monsters and no matter how hard I tried to run, paralyzing fear would overtake me and my body would barely move. Why do some ‘themes’ stop and others continue? And how is something that isn’t even ‘real’ capable of making us feel so bad (or good)? I don’t think I’ll ever have the answers. I do like to share some of my dreams with my husband to get his take on things but the ones I never share? Oh my goodness, the ones I have about John Mayer, Justin Bieber, and Mr. Desirable? I keep those to myself!! I’ve been with him long enough to know that there are some things best left unsaid. Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed what I wrote. If you did and would like to read more, I trust you will return tomorrow as will I.

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