KITB: What Do You Dream?

From Kick in the Blog:  We live our lives day in and day out and all of us harbor some dream or other. Whether we believe that dream will ever be realized is neither here nor there.

What's your dream? Is it for you? For your kids? Can it come true?Do you even really want it to?

The way I dream changed the day Roby told me he had AIDS.  In those terrifying hours, a new way of thinking took over for me and I still feel the effects of that day, that event.  We stopped thinking about our future in terms of decades and years and started living in the now.  I think I mostly do that still and there are definitely pros and cons.

When I turned 30, I realized that I had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life - I had never imagined being 30 because I had always known that Roby would not be around by the time I got there.  I realized that I had to figure out what the hell I was going to do and get to it.  

Now, I dream and do.  I still have dreams of writing, so I write. I take workshops and keep the blog and write emails at work. Maybe that will be enough - maybe someday, I will write something more.  I dream of being art-ful, so I am actively finding ways to incorporate art in my life. I had given up on art when I was young and it is so fulfilling to find it now. I will never make a living being an artist but that isn't the dream for me - my dream is living a colorful life, playing in exploration of words and colors and images in the world. I am doing that and I'm so happy to be doing it.

I would still love to live a summer at the beach, maybe a whole year. I think this one is a long way off for me, but not impossible. I'm not in a hurry at this point, so that's okay.

Right now, my most immediate dream is to take a vacation - a real, live relaxing vacation.  It is coming. I'm planning it now. :) 

Kickintheblog.com is the brainchild of Jessica Rosenberg ~ It's my life...
Come back often for new prompts to kick you out of your blogging rut! 

Strange Morning Dream

I slept like a log last night and woke up at 6:00am to my alarm clock, but I didn't hear the alarm because I was still hearing a dream I was having.  In my dream, the alarm didn't ring - it was the soft, sweet voice of a Japanese girl reciting haiku to me. When I woke up, I heard her voice say, "Write this down", but I didn't remember the haiku.  I think I must have hit snooze or something and went back to sleep to see if she would tell me the haiku again.  This happened 3 times, I woke again at 6:12am, 6:18am and 6:40am. Finally, the last time, when I woke, I didn't hear the alarm going off again, I just heard her voice saying, "Do everything you need to do, every day." 

The content of the dream is vague - I can see images but I don't really know what was happening. There was definitely a Roby sensibility to it - there was a portion where I was trying on clothes and he was urging me to try something new.

When I was finally able to really detatch from the dream and see the time, I was running about 10 minutes later than I usually would on Tuesdays.  I hurried to get ready, but everything seemed very slow and quiet - almost like I was in a bubble or something. When I finally left my house (on time, might I add), traffic was quieter than normal, it was a little darker (DST), and I was able to make good time and get to my job with plenty of time.

So, all in all, I have had a strange sense following me all day. "Do everything you need to do, every day."  Something I need to think about, obviously.

Is It Friday yet?

I have been discombobulated all week. On Tuesday, I thought it was Monday. On Wednesday, I thought it was Thursday. Today, I knew it was Thursday, but I didn't trust that the week was going to end. It hasn't been a bad week or anything - I just can't wait for the weekend for some reason this week. I've been feeling tired and not feeling like I've been getting enough sleep this week. It could be that the CRAZY DREAMS I've been having have not been that restful. Stuff with characters from Buffy, work dreams, dreams with elephants and dinosaurs and giant birds and the ocean freezing over. WEIRD.

So, I'm ready for the weekend. A little art, a little rest, some cleaning, maybe some catch up work. Doesn't matter though - the weekend just has a whole different vibe to it.

Dreaming is Getting WEIRD

I'm throwing this down because it was weird and I don't want to forget the dream and I often do when I don't write it down.

I dreamed that one of the students I had interpreted for was in a video and I sent it down to her. She decided to come visit and discuss but brought some of her friends who turned out to be pretty scary. I shook hands with them (weird - I hate shaking hands) and we were in this restaurant where we were downstairs (like restaurants in New York) and there was an upstairs entry and obviously stairs. I was wearing a blue button-down shirt over another shirt. We sat down at this table to eat and then something happened. I started talking to this woman and she asked me if she could have my shirt. I said yes and as I started to unbutton the blue shirt, I pulled one of the buttons off by accident.

I said something odd like, "I just popped off my button. You can have it. I mean, you can have the shirt still but we'll have to find a way to get the button back on." We left the restaurant and entered another shop which had dressing rooms lining the walls of the store. There was fabric and jewelry and other "fabric store" stuff EVERYWHERE, plus clothes everywhere - hanging from the walls, the doors, the ceiling, on racks. The changing rooms reminded me of what you see in videos of India - practically on top of each other - every inch of wall was covered and people everywhere popping in and out of them. I started to feel claustrophobic in the store and went to the counter to see if they just had a needle so I could sew the button on. My friend, Kevin (yes, you) was behind the counter and led me into another part of the store and gave me a needle to sew the button back on.

The new area of the store turned into a Thai restaurant and Kevin (yes, you) was one of the chefs. I was standing in the restaurant (there were no chairs) and Kevin was cooking something when the lady from the sewing store came over and was looking through the slats in the windows to see if someone was there. She looked a little bit like one of the women who works in a restaurant that I eat at occasionally. Kevin brought over my food and assured me that there would be no trouble and went to talk to the lady who was pointing and gesturing in my general direction. I was surrounded by bodyguard looking people. I went to pick up the Thai food (it was curry) on a square metal plate (almost like prison or camping plates) and there were three ants on the plate crawling around. I had to get them off (if you don't know about my multicolored ant dreams, I will save it for another day). I was trying not to offend anyone but I don't like ants so I was trying to get them off without spilling the Thai food. I was chattering to my friend, Kevin, and surreptitiously trying to get the ants off.  When I got them off, we were suddenly transferred to a construction site wearing hard hats and my blue shirt was gone and I was just wearing regular clothes. My friend Kevin walked up to me and I said to him, "Wow, you sure have a lot of jobs..." and then I woke up.

Weird.

Dream, Dream, Dream

Okay, so I saw "Inception" last week (which is about entering dreams)and that might contribute slightly to the strange dreams I have been having lately, but they started before that.

I believe I wrote a post about a dream where I had to climb up a steep embankment and then try to squeeze through a tiny space to enter then place I was going. I have been having dreams like that regularly for the last month or so...last night, I not only had a dream about having to crawl through these tiny, dank, dark tunnels to get anywhere, but I also had a dream where I had to walk on these wooden plank-like structures everywhere. It was like two pieces of narrow wood made up all the floors and walkways and if you didn't keep your balance, you would fall down into the unknown.

These dreams are really disturbing and when I wake up, I feel distressed. I know they are processing my stress load - I have always had dreams that are pretty clear about that.

When I was in high school, I had two major stress dreams - one was of all my term papers and English papers. I used to type them and leave them on our dining room table for my mother to proofread. The dream would be like a video camera coming out of my bedroom, walking down the hall, focusing on the paper and a GIGANTIC BIC pen (black ink) was scribbling out all the pages. I mean a human-sized GIGANTIC BIC pen. The other dream was of a big monster dog with red eyes chasing me.  As my stress level increased, the dog got bigger and bigger until the last time I had the dream...

The last big dog dream, I was still driving my little yellow VW Dasher.  My friends and I were over on 185th (near the high school) and Jason of "Friday the 13th" fame was chasing us.  We jumped into the car and tried to start it. It wouldn't start and wouldn't start. Finally, as Jason was upon us, the car started and we pulled out onto 185th headed towards the high school.  Just as we were almost free and clear, the GIGANTIC black dog with RED GLOWING devil eyes jumped in front of my car and bent its head down to look into my windshield and growl.  Then I woke up.

So, I know I have a pattern of dealing with stress through my dreams, but I have to say that these constricting dreams are NOT GOOD.  They really make my heart pound and I can see in some of my real life that I am having some difficulty with crowds and crowded places. I hope I can deal with this and get rid of the darn dreams.