What dreams may come

When my dog thumped his paws on the bed near my pillow this morning, sticking his little furry face way too close to mine, he interrupted a very odd dream.  In it I was on a job interview in Seattle with Chef Bobby Flay...only in the dream he wasn't a chef but a real estate agent. He took me on a tour of his office which was about 6 stories of stairs and winding hallways, and said he would hire me if I could find my way out.  Somewhere along the way as I attempted to do just that, I lost my cell phone but acquired a very nice bottle of wine.  I distinctly remember looking down at the bottle's label and saying out loud "this is a very nice bottle of wine". I made my way thru the maze of rooms/floors/halls to the outside only to realize I had also lost my car. Bobby drove me to a gas station where I used a pay phone to call my adult daughter in Texas to let her know I was safely out of the building and could she please send me a taxi. And that is where the doggie thumping shook me out of the dream. I don't know if I got the job or the taxi or a new phone. I didn't get to ask Bobby why he didn't lend me his phone or call a taxi for me himself and I never got to drink the very nice wine.

As I stumbled out the door to walk my dog, still thinking about the dream, I remembered just a few weeks ago that a friend asked me if I had vivid dreams and, if so, did I remember them.  She said that sometimes hers were wild and a little weird but when she tried to recall them all she could come up with was a general feeling of having had the dream but not the dream itself.  I read somewhere that the only dreams you remember are the ones you wake up in the middle of, which is a shame. It is quite possible we are all having the most amazing dreams all night long that we will never remember, only waking up to remember the silly ones.

I have had a recurring dream for over 30 years, although in the past few years it has changed slightly. In the late 70s I had read a Ray Bradbury short story about a man who was responsible for the balancing of the universe.  He had to put odd things in odd places in order to keep the world spinning the way it should. For some reason this story really stuck with me and in my dream I am responsible for keeping the world safe from utter destruction thru a simple task like raising the blinds or shutting the curtains. I would wake up in a panic because in the dream I have forgotten to do that one simple task and now the world is coming to an end. I would rush out of the bedroom to the kitchen or the living room or wherever the very important curtains were, heart pounding as I tried to correct my mistake.  Fortunately by the time I reached the blinds, I fully realized what an idiot I was being and that the position of my curtains did not hold the fate of the world. Since I started taking blood thinners a few years ago, the dream has morphed from me having to shut the blinds and save the world into a requirement for me to take my medicine and save the world.  I wake up in a cold sweat because I have forgotten to do that one simple task and we are all going to die. And yes, I get up out of bed, rush into the bathroom and it is only as I am reaching for the medicine that I remember that the world does not revolve around my taking or not taking a pill.

I have had silly dreams, scary dreams and dreams that are full of friends and family who are no longer with me. Those are the hard ones. I have never seen myself in my dreams but I hear myself frequently and very clearly. I sometimes wonder when I hear myself if it is because I am talking out loud. I read a blog by a woman who said she was so curious about her dreaming self that she set up a camera to film her sleeping.  I find that mildly creepy.  I don't really want to see myself thrashing about and talking out loud. I also don't feel inclined to have my dreams analyzed. I am happy to have them remain a mystery.

Hamlet said "...to sleep, perchance to dream, ay, there's the rub." Do you remember your dreams?






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