I dreamed I was having a nervous breakdown

Last night, I dreamed I was having a nervous breakdown. I couldn't remember where I put things.  I was frustrated at everything I had to do and I was short-tempered and angry and I couldn't explain how I was feeling.   I'd pick things up and go into a room and forget why I was there and put things back down at random.  People around me were beginning to express concern.

Thankfully it was a dream.  I woke up relieved and went into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee.  Then I thought I'd get the newspaper first from the front yard.  First I looked at the clock to see if it was time to wake Karen up.  Then I turned back, looked at the sink and couldn't remember why I was in the kitchen. 

Hmmm.

Dreaming on the couch

Subtitle: Inception Part II - The Family

This morning I fell asleep on the couch and began dreaming that I had taken the day off from work to spend having some quality time with my more or less grown-up son. But I knew I had to walk the dog so I was trying to wake up and finally did. (But of course, I didn't really).

I continued dreaming that I was awake but so groggy I felt maybe I had had some kind of stroke. Daisy came when I called and I stumbled to the porch, dismayed to see that someone had tracked brightly colored fall leaves throughout the house. (Dream interpretation 101a from a misremembered quote by Leon Troski: "It is odd but the greatest surprise that ever comes to man is that he has grown old").

I knew Karen would be upset to see all the leaves in the house but I couldn't think about cleaning them up; I could hardly remove the chainlock from the porch door (Dream interpretation 101b: "The chain lock must stand for something but I don't know what -- maybe just feeling trapped by my life). I could hardly stand up or breathe. I wondered if I was dying. Outside, Daisy ran happily off and I noticed that a storm had blown the cover of the grill into the lake. It was Lake Pearl where I grew up as a child. (Dream interpretation 101c: "No need to interpret this -- lake, childhood, happier time, it is what it is"). I saw it floating just under the surface of the water beyond my grasp. When I turned to see if I could find a stick or something to get it, Brian, his wife, children, and a gang of his friends were standing on the porch steps watching me. I was surprised to see them because I thought he had already been taken off to prison. But seeing him reminded me of a message I had wanted to give him about people plotting against him. I had planned to tell him when we were alone but I thought I'd never see him again so I leaned in and -- his wife was screaming at me not to tell him and he was shrinking back in terror -- but I laid out what I knew. Afterwards, however, I knew that I had destroyed him with the knowledge.

Devastated myself, I turned and jumped into the lake retrieve the grill cover but it had sunk. The pristine lake of my child hood was now polluted with hundreds of old, soggy, cardboard boxes. (Dream interpretation 101d: "Obvious, old chap -- you are drowning in the emotional baggage of your past -- that subconscious metaphor is a no-brainer")

So I climbed out, realizing my cellphone and palm pilot had been destroyed by the water, and went inside. Brian and all his friends were busy moving all their stuff out of my house - furniture, clothes and toys belonging to the grandkids. Karen arrived and began helping but I did not lift a finger. I just watched the rooms becoming bare. I was sad that I'd never see them again and yet I noticed how clean and bright the walls and floors had become.

I went out the porch again, to walk around the house and up the hill to a store. Karen said, "Aren't you going to hug everybody goodbye?"

"Nope," I grunted, but when I walked around the side they were all coming around from where the truck was loaded to hug me goodbye. I wasn't in the mood and shrugged off the hugs. Except Brian. He held me for a longer than usual time and seemed to want to say something but was unable to talk. I just whispered in his ear, "Be strong. Be careful. You have enemies."

The hug ended and I went on up the hill to Walmart thinking, sadly, that he probably wouldn't last very long but there wasn't much more I could do about it. And just maybe he had some of the bizarre strengths of youth that had seen me through when I had been his age. I couldn't remember what they were now. But I had survived and maybe he would too.

Coming back down the hill from Walmart, I suddenly realized that I could kind of ski on the gravel road on my stocking feet. It was a thrill, gaining speed and slaloming back and forth to avoid cars and road equipment. Near the bottom, going fast, I saw that there was a break in the road and I decided to jump it...and like a ski-jumper I was suddenly high in the air. Flying over everything, wind in my face. I felt a sense of ecstasy.

Dream interpretation 101e: "I'm still working on the cell phone and palm pilot and you lost me completely at Walmart. The flying part might be some kind of life after death thing. Heck, you know better than to try and interpret dreams."

And before I came down, Daisy was licking my hand next to the couch and I woke up and took her for a walk. Lake Pearl was no longer there but I noticed the lawn needed mowing soon. I checked my cell phone but there was no message from my son. I came up stairs and wrote this blog.

Or maybe I'm still dreaming.

And, if not, I suspect anyone who tries to read it will be bored into sleeping. The other truth about dreams is that they never have any interest for anyone except for the dreamer.

Night night.

At home in the world of sleep

I enjoying my days...most of them, anyway.  But I also love to sleep.  Mostly because of dreaming. 

Ever since I made peace with dinosaurs, bears, evil soldiers and other characters that used to create nightmares when I was an adolescent, my dreams have mostly been interesting, with only enough anxiety to keep the plots moving.

I haven't done it for a year or so but for periods in my life I even kept a computerized database of dreams with verious fields for keywords, names, places, object so that I could cross reference them and see how images in my dreams related over long periods of time.

Yes.  I'm a geek.

I've never tried to interpret dreams because I have a gut feeling that the real purpose of dreams is to interpret me, not vice versa.   So I just watch them.  Kind of like Louis and Clark exploring an unknown land. 

Having gone to sleep now for approximately 23,239 nights (plus an unknown number of naps and minus a handfull of all-nighters), I've identified several common threads --

My deams often involve

1.  exploring strange wilderness places
2.  driving various vehicles
3.  flying
4.  discovering, in public places, that I've forgotten to put on my pants
5. hanging out with famous people
6. and, of course, lots of romance and sex

One thing that has amazed me is the number of ways that water shows up in my dreams.  I can be drinking it, swimming in it, walking around puddles.  It can be ice, snow, rain.  I would say that some form of water appears in almost 80% of my dreams.

And there are a batch of locales that show up enough so that as soon as I see them, I'm right at home.  There is a long forest path (sometimes a road, sometimes on a mountain).   And there is an old apartment building that is very interesting, inhabited by lots of wonderful women.  Sometimes, however, it is on fire and sometimes it is made of cardboard or molding wood that makes walking around a challenge.  And finally there is a fascinating museum or antigue store -- often associated with underground passages.  

During the last few years, I seem to have become part of a big, extended family.  They seem to be of a Slavic ancestery.   They love me a lot and I'm usually in love with or planning to marry one or more of a wide assortment of women of all ages. 

And finally in almost all of my dreams there are three main characters -- myself, a kind of masculine shadow self, and a woman.  Sometimes I will begin the dream as myself and suddenly shift into the other male character, interacting back with myself. 

I suppose with all this accumulated dream experience, I could breeze through psychiatric analysis.  But I'd rather just enjoy them.   Sometimes I feel very lucky that I'm experience all 24 hours of each day, both awake and asleep. 

Yes, I'm probably crazy. 

A Dream

Last night I had a dream that I made a point to log in my dream database this morning. I don’t log them all but some of them kind of grab me.

In this dream, I was in a restaurant and wanted to buy a dessert for a young woman and her 12-year-old daughter who were sitting in the corner. I knew and loved these two people and they loved me but more in a family way than a sexual way. When I went over to their table, however, they ignored me. I decided they were deep in conversation or maybe the time wasn’t right and they wanted to be left alone, so I went back and made small talk about the weather with a waiter.

Then I went outside and ran into Lee Armen. (Lee, in real life, was one of my best friends throughout high school and college and for a few years after – then we lost touch. Several years ago a mutual friend told me had a died of stomach cancer. There is probably a whole blog to be written about Lee. Sometime).

Anyway, back in the dream, I’m glad to see Lee and we play catch with a odd-shaped fuzzy ball. Then I start to ask about his wife and remember that I had talked to her after I had learned of his death. I realize, in the dream, that he is dead and I ask, “So I’m dead then?”

“Yes,” he say.

“When? How? And how can this be true. Nothing seems any different?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he answers.

And I realize that the woman and girl had not been just ignoring me but they couldn’t see me at all. But the clerk had talked to me. The realization was paralyzing! What my death meant was that I would never be able to have meaningful relationships but only be able to talk about trivial things to strangers. For eternity. I was clearly in Hell.

I turned around. Lee was gone. But looking over at the restaurant, the waiter was smiling blandly and waving at me. “Nice weather we’re having!” he shouted.