My dreaming life has always been more exciting than my real life. At night, I dream in color, with sounds and complicated plots. Lately, I have been dreaming of people I haven’t seen in ages.
Last night I dreamed of a woman friend who falls into that category, and a male friend of hers, whom I met only once decades ago and whose name I would never remember if I tried. But my dreaming brain remembered his name. In my dream, he was driving a very green van and pulled up to rescue us from some situation (that I now can’t recall).
My dreams are always situational and frustrating. Two nights ago, I dreamed I was in a large hotel (a building I dream about often; sometimes it’s a college or school, sometimes a hotel, and it’s always filled with Escher-like passageways, so after you leave a room, you can’t find it again). This time I dreamed about an aunt and uncle (now in their 80s), whom I haven’t seen or talked with in years. My mother was there, too, (wearing a colorful gypsy scarf on her head) and a 6-year old that was some sort of combination of my grandson and my son (who was wearing some kind of peach overalls). I left them all in a room, and when I tried to get back, I couldn’t find the room, or my room key, or the information desk. No one I stopped to ask was any help. When I went outside to try to get perspective, I couldn’t find the door to get back in. Of course, I woke up without any of it being resolved.
My most memorable dream (from more than 30 years ago) was one in which the planet was being invaded by large pastel colored creatures who looked like a combination of rats and kangaroos. If one bit you, you turned into one of them until they, or someone else, killed you. And then, when you died, you turned back into the human person you were. One of them chased me into kitchen, and I climbed up into the sink and reached into the cutlery drawer and took out a long fork (the kind you use to hold a roast while you carve it). Just as it lunged to bite me, I shoved the fork into the creature’s mouth.
And It started to turn into my brother. If I pulled the fork out and it lived, it would bite me and I would become one of them. If I shoved the fork in further, so it would die, it would turn back into my brother and my brother would die.
That’s when I woke up.
No wonder I grind my teeth.