I have vivid and unusual dreams, when I remember them. Often, they play out like movies. If dreams can tell us anything about ourselves, then this dream journal should tell a lot about me! (Let's hope it doesn't just say I'm a crazy lady.)

Friday 19 February 2010

Disjointed Dream Memory

I guess I went to bed worrying about my weight (again) and about how my kids and I were going to get to town this morning. We planned on walking, but I knew it might be difficult for the younger kids and I was a little worried that we wouldn't make it to our appointment on time.

The reason I know these things were on my mind when I went to bed last night is because my dream, what little I can remember of it, was all about those things. In the dream, Robert had made more cupcakes and different family members kept offering them to me. I had to keep turning down the cupcakes offered, even though I really wanted one, because I knew how much I wanted to reach my goal weight this week.

And then I was trying to get the kids ready to go to our appointment in town, and they kept messing up their hair after I'd brushed it so that I would have to brush it again. I would change the baby's diaper and then he'd poo in it again, so I would have to change him again. After lots of interruptions and things keeping me from getting everyone ready, we finally went out, with the double stroller and the single stroller in use so that the three youngest would not have to get too tired walking, and then before we even got to the gate at the end of our driveway, my 7 year old daughter was saying, "Mommy, my legs are tired!"

Oddly enough, my day actually was a little bit like I dreamed it, only I had to turn down cake and McDonald's. And we were late to the appointment, but not by much.

Friday 12 February 2010

Doorways & Family On The Other Side

In last night’s dream, I was shopping, and my son Cameron was with me. He started crawling away through the aisles of clothing, and as I went to follow him, the sales clerk assured me that there was nowhere for him to go and that he’d be perfectly safe there. I followed him anyway. He crawled down a short hallway that had doors to the ladies’ room and men’s room on either side. I picked him up, not wanting him to get dirty on the floor.

There was a doorway at the end of the hall too. As I looked, a woman came out. She had on a lab coat. I wasn’t sure if she was a doctor or a scientist, but before she closed the door behind her, I caught a glimpse of others in the room behind the door who were also wearing lab coats. She smiled at me and said, “Cute baby.” She said something else to me then, but I can’t remember what it was.

I left the hallway and went back into the main part of the store with Cameron still in my arms. I walked to the back of the store and noticed another door. It didn’t look like it fit with the rest of the store. Curious, I opened it and found a pub on the other side. I entered the pub and it was full of people. It appeared that there was a party going on in the pub. There was an indoor grill and a couple of men were barbequing on it. Someone else was serving drinks, and there was a lot of general socializing and friendly chatter going on.

I began to recognize some of the faces in the pub. I recognized my grandmothers and my grandfathers (all who have died in years past). An elderly gentleman called me over and started chatting with me. I think he was a great-uncle or great-great-uncle of mine, but I can’t remember now. I just remember that everyone in the pub was a relation of mine who had died. They oohed and aahed over how adorable Cameron was. They asked about the rest of the family and within minutes Robert and the rest of the kids came through the door from the store.

I remember feeling really good there, really loved and a part of something much bigger than myself. I remember lots of talks with people there but I can’t remember what we talked about, only that it was important. Two people told me not to worry, everything was going to work out just great, and I believed them. Then I woke up.

Just thinking about the dream so that I can remember enough to write it down now is bringing back that pleasant feeling from the dream.

Thursday 11 February 2010

Finding My Way

Last night, I had an interesting dream.

In the dream, I was a teenager and I lived in an area that was full of green, lush landscape and had lots of tree-lined paths to walk along. Robert was a teenager too and my best friend.

He didn’t come to school one day, and I had the worrying feeling that he was sick, so the next day, instead of going to school, I got my horse out for a ride and decided to ride out to his house to visit him. My horse was a very contrary one though, and he would sometimes stop for no reason or would randomly turn and trot in the opposite direction than the one I wanted to go in. After a while of getting nowhere with my mischievous horse, I climbed back off of him and decided to walk while leading him instead. He was a very affectionate horse though, and I wasn’t angry with him. I knew it was just his way of playing.

Because my horse had taken me in the wrong direction, I had to pass by my school in order to get to Robert’s. As I passed the school, other students were outside socializing before the bell rang. Someone had started throwing candy bars and sweets all over from above as a way of celebrating their birthday. Teens were scrambling all over to collect as many of the chocolates and candies as they could. I saw a handful of lollipops and decided to collect them because I was in the mood for something sweet but I didn’t want anything as fattening and bad for me as chocolate.

As I walked past the school, another girl who knew me came up to me and started walking in step with me. She chattered away about many topics, and I wasn’t really paying attention. I was still worried about Robert. A young boy who was physically handicapped walked over to me. He had trouble controlling his muscles and walked with a funny gait. His head leaned over to the right, and he wasn’t able to speak clearly. He indicated that he would like a lollipop.

The girl beside me told him to go away. But I gave him a lollipop. He smiled and I walked on. A girl, afflicted with what appeared to be the same thing as the boy came up to us. She also indicated that she would like a lollipop. Again, the girl beside me told her to go away. But I gave her a lollipop. She smiled her thanks, and I walked on.

The girl beside me said, “If you keep giving them away, you won’t have anything left for yourself.” I thought about her words for a brief moment, but realized that the idea didn’t bother me.

My horse nickered at me and nudged gently at my back with his nose, and I knew he was telling me that he was ready to go for a ride again. When he asked me like that, I knew he would behave himself, so I said “Goodbye” to the girl and climbed back onto my horse and continued on to Robert’s.

The path was a wide dirt path that was lined with trees and shrubbery. The birds were chirping in a chorus of different bird voices. The sunlight was just barely breaking through the tree leaves, leaving dappled sunlight scattered randomly around the path. I had the feeling that Robert would be okay. It was very peaceful riding along the path to his house. Then I woke up.

Wednesday 10 February 2010

A Dreaming Problem With My Body Image

I can’t remember much about my dream last night, but it had a lot to do with my weight loss efforts and my unhappiness with the current state of how slowly I am losing weight and how my body is reshaping.

In the dream, even though I am only 2 ½ pounds away from a healthy BMI for my height, and even though I only have 4 ½ pounds left to lose until I reach my goal weight, I felt HUGE. I felt as though parts of my body were still as enormous as they had been at the beginning of my weight loss efforts.

My husband has recently commented to me on how tiny my bottom is getting, but, in the dream, I looked over my shoulder into a mirror so I could see myself from behind, and my butt was humongous!

I really only remember the general feel of the dream and that last part where I looked into the mirror and saw how big I was from behind and felt my heart sink.

I was relieved to wake up from this particular dream.

Tuesday 9 February 2010

Driving Challenges

Most of last night’s dreams are just vague and shadowy things flitting around in my mind, just out of grasp. But I do remember the end of the last dream I had just before waking.

It started out focusing on food. I was having trouble resisting some of the temptations around me. For some reason, my house was full of chocolate and caramel desserts. I did resist them after spending some time looking at the Slimming World syn values on each one. But there was a pack of chocolate caramel cookies that were particularly tempting to me. Still, I resisted.

Then we had to drive somewhere. Robert was driving. I was in the passenger seat, and all of our kids were in the back of the car. It was raining. After driving some country roads, surrounded by green countryside, we eventually came to a part of the road that was partly flooded. It didn’t appear deep, and there were cars in front of us, so we could see how deep the water was against their cars. The reason for the flooding was that the amount of rain had made the lake beside the road overflow its banks.

We drove with the car tilting towards the right, towards the water, because bringing the car up to the side of the road on our left which was slightly elevated kept at least two of our wheels on semi-dry land. I wasn’t worried about the car flipping over though. At one point, it appeared that the water was getting deeper, possibly too deep for us, but then the raised land on our left levelled off, still slightly higher than the road we were on, so Robert got the car up onto it and we passed the other cars by.

It was a good thing we were going at a good speed by then because once we got past the flooded area, we were faced with an extremely steep hill climb. It was so steep that it was just shy of being vertical. We were doing pretty well on the climb, but then the car directly in front of us lost its traction and started to roll backwards. Robert said, “Oh no.” There was no way to avoid the backwards-rolling car, and it banged into the front end of our car.

Because the action of it hitting us stopped us, it seemed impossible to get the car going again at a pace that would get us the rest of the way up the incline. That’s when our car and all the cars around us turned into babies. Our car-baby looked just like Cameron, our youngest who is 14 ½ months old. All of the car-babies didn’t seem to have any trouble crawling up the short distance left to the top, some of them getting help by the cars’ passengers who walked up behind them.

Once at the top, the car-babies turned back into cars and everyone got back in to continue on the journey. That’s when I woke up.

Being in a car, whether driving or as a passenger, is a recurring theme in many of my dreams. And facing perils like floods and steep inclines is also something that happens frequently in those dreams. Usually I also have to face narrow, crumbling roads that are at very high elevations as well. I believe this is the first time my car turned into a baby and then back again though!

Sunday 7 February 2010

Caterpillars & Dandelions

Last night, I had a very complicated dream, at least, I feel like I did, but I only remember bits from the end of it, just before I woke. In one bit, I was gathering dandelions while they were still yellow flowers. I was gathering them to cook. I was going to boil them and add them to other vegetables as part of dinner.

I remember reading once that people used to cook dandelions and eat them, so this dream is probably just a result of that memory. This part of a dream was at the end of a much more involved dream, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember the rest of the dream.

In another part of the dream, I found a caterpillar. It was fuzzy and black with little red spots. I put in a shoebox full of leaves and brought it inside to show to the kids. I knew they’d be fascinated by it and want to gently stroke its fuzziness with a finger. I planned on letting it go after the kids had seen it. I think this bit was at the end of the dandelion part of my dream, as if I found the caterpillar while gathering dandelions.

But that is all I can remember of the dream.

Friday 5 February 2010

Sick Kitty

I woke up early this morning due to my cat throwing up on the floor beside my bed. I quickly picked him up and put him in the bathtub in the bathroom and grabbed what I would need to go and clean up the vomit from the floor. When I went back to the bathroom, he was gone, and I was too tired to look for him even though I knew I should put him outside.

When I went back to bed, my anxiety over what would happen with him still in the house seeped into my dream as I fell back asleep.

I dreamed that I got up in the morning and went downstairs. As I got downstairs, I found that my cat had been sick again in the downstairs hall. I cleaned up the sick and worried that he had been sick elsewhere, but I woke up from the dream before my dream-self went looking for the cat.

Awake now, I really did go downstairs. My younger children were up and demanding breakfast so I started the morning routine of packing their lunches for school and making them breakfast. Then I heard my 7 year old yelling, “Yucky! Mommy! There’s something really gross in the back room!”

I went into the dining room and saw that the cat had apparently had diarrhea on the carpet in there. So my anxious dream of earlier wasn’t too far off the mark.

Thursday 4 February 2010

Remembering & Forgetting

I haven't been remembering my dreams lately. I know that I have been dreaming, because I wake up with the dream just on the edge of my memory, something I know is there but I can't quite bring back fully into my mind.

I really want to keep writing my dreams down here, but I can't do that if I don't remember what my dreams are about. I know the reason I don't remember them; lately, I have not been able to wake up in my own time. Other things have woken me and needed my immediate attention, and with my mind turning instantly to other things, whatever I had just been dreaming is soon lost.

Either my husband wakes me to tell me to go and wake up our teenage daughters for school (the price of being the one on the side of the bed nearest to the door), or my three year old wakes in the middle of the night and needs my attention. Sometimes it's the baby waking in the middle of the night or early in the morning because he needs a diaper change or he's hungry. Other times, it is my four year old daughter waking because she's had a bad dream. Even our cat and dog take their turns to wake me up, the dog because he's found something to bark at in the middle of the night and won't quiet himself until I've gone downstairs and spoken to him and the cat because he's decided he wants attention in the middle of the night so decides to walk all over my face, purring as loudly as he can.

Whatever the reasons, I am not sure what it is going to take for me to start remembering my dreams again. Maybe I should try taking a nap. I could sure use one, with or without dreaming!