Thursday, May 13, 2010

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

As someone who spends most of his waking hours thinking (and overthinking...then thinking about the fact that he's overthinking), sleep can be a welcome respite once I finally get my brain to wind down for the night. One of the nice things is that generally, while I know I dream regularly, I tend not to remember those dreams once I wake up. Remembering dreams just gives my brain more things work out, and that's the last thing I need. Recently, however, I've been having a greater concentration of dreams that I remember fairly clearly. I think my subconscious is trying to send messages. And then I wake up either trying to rationalize or question what I did in my dream as well as attempt to interpret the messages, which tends to be an exercise in futility at best.

A lot of these dreams are about some of the things I want most in my life, but I have to say: If my subconscious is directing them, it certainly has an odd sense of humor about itself. It seems that it's writing "The Worst-Case Scenario Handbook to Josh's Life".

A dream about jobs:
I had the Monday through Friday job that I've continue to hope for. I was the boss with the office, big desk, the works. It was a proud feeling. My boss called with a big project for myself and my staff, and it needed to be done by the end of the workday. I wrote down the details and prepared to get to it. Life was good. Then I got to know my staff. Utterly incompetent, clueless about what their jobs entailed, and no motivation to work whatsoever. I spent a great deal of the dream madly running around doing their jobs and mine because I knew if I didn't get the project done, I'd be packing up that big desk and leaving the office. And apparently, my staff knew that I'd do the job for them, because they were sitting around watching and making snide comments while I was running around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off. At the end of the workday, I sprinted the finished project up to my supervisor's office, where there was a stone door slowly dropping toward the floor. I knew I had to get that project in, so with a burst of speed I dove across the polished floor, slid under the door just moments before it would have crushed me. I jumped to my feet and tossed the packet onto the desk in front of me.

I woke up from this one with my heart racing. Then the questioning of my actions began. Why the heck would I keep this staff? Why the heck wouldn't I at least ask my boss for an extension on the project? Why did I never ask for help? Why am I worrying this much about a dream?

A dream about dating:
I was out on a date with a woman that I could feel a strong attraction for, even though I don't think I ever clearly saw her face. Nothing was ever good enough for her on this date, but I adjusted because I knew that I cared about her. I changed restaurants, changed tables at the restaurant, changed seats at the theater, and sent back the dessert twice because she asked me to. And I did it without a complaint.

Boy, was I mad at myself when I woke up! I scolded myself for a few minutes for not standing up for myself before I reminded myself that it was just a dream.

A dream about family:
I had two beautiful children. I could tell they were mine by physical resemblance. I could feel the incredible love I had for them. I was making them breakfast (which they proceeded to throw around the kitchen), cleaning up after them, taking them to school, coming home, cleaning up after them some more, going shopping for the video games they wanted, setting up special play areas for them, picking them up from school, showing them everything that I'd done for them...and they hated it. Despised it. Trashed the play area, smashed the video games, then went about breaking random things around the house. I couldn't stop them, no matter what I did.

The first thing I demanded to know when I woke up was what kind of woman would abandon me with two children. Getting no answer from my subconscious on that, I moved on to the sadness of having children that just didn't respect their father.

This particular grouping of dreams has me thinking. Is there a particular reason I'm having them now? Is there something I need to address immediately? Is my subconscious just torturing me? They certainly touch on the dark side of the things that I wish for in my life. The dreams may be a good reminder to just be aware and careful with the choices that I make or to be careful what I wish for, which is nice in a (sick, twisted) sense. But I think I'll be ok going back to a stretch of nights where I don't remember what I dreamed once I wake up in the morning.

2 comments:

  1. Josh- your dreams are way too close to reality! You need to start dreaming about unicorns and superheros....

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  2. I think you're on to something! Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to direct my dreams yet...

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