Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Dreams (For Ernie)

I have recurring dreams. They fall into the following categories:

  • I have to pee. I find a bathroom but it turns out to be transparent or have no walls or be a toilet in the middle of a classroom full of students or...or...or...I set off in search of another bathroom. Rinse, repeat. I wake having to pee.
  • I am naked. You know this dream.
  • I am trying to make a flight/train/bus and am running late. I cannot find something or someone, I cannot figure out my travel documents, I cannot confirm where to go, the location of the departure keeps changing, I discover too late that I am on the wrong vehicle or that my party is on a different vehicle.
  • I find myself stuck in a small space. Usually this is a space that was fine, but it suddenly contracts. Often I find that in order to get someplace (out of here, into the house, away from the baddie) I must wriggle through a space far too small and twisted.
  • I need to pack some items, but they do not fit into the luggage or box and every time I look away there is more to pack. This can include the messy version in which clothes and papers litter the room, or the furniture version in which there are items that cannot possibly fit, or the absent receptacle version in which I am missing some luggage and clearly need it to contain our crapola.
  • I am teaching. There is something wrong (I forgot my notes. The classroom is weirdly oriented or divided. The material is dull and I can't make it interesting. Students are leaving, talking, laughing...), and I realize that they all hate me and I suck.
I used to have flying dreams and sexy dreams and occasionally intense emotional dreams (including the memorable day when I was 16. I dreamt that my entire family was dead, woke to find the house empty, and reeled from room to room weeping until I woke up enough to realize that I was both bonkers and nekkid.). These days it's all anxiety.

According to the NYT, some people have formed dream discussion groups. They talk about the dreams and help one another answer questions. Sounds interesting to me...

1 comment:

Ernie said...

Thanks for sharing those dreams. Anxiety? Really? Well, I think the good thing aboutis that in your waking-real-life you don't appear to have any anxiety.