Friday, September 6, 2013

Dream a Little Dream...

I've been wearing a CPAP machine since the end of June. I think we've finally become reluctant friends, or at least declared a cease-fire.

In case you missed my incessant whining about it, you can read “SCUBA, Anyone?” and “Why I'm No Longer Going to Colonize Mars”. Basically, it plays into my claustrophobia, and my extreme fear of drowning. I had nightmares (at first) about both of those events and would wake up hyperventilating, which is kinda hard to do when air is being forced down your throat. I'm a champion panicker though, so I managed.

After a while, as I was getting used to it, my dreams changed to me being assigned impossible tasks and working on them all night long. If I woke up and then went back to sleep, I'd be back in the same dream, at the same place I left, still having to complete the hideous task.

Have you ever run a daycare with too many children to count who were not allowed to take naps and the cars you had to transport them places were all rusted out with no car seats?

Or how about catering a large affair for 200 people, in a cooking competition (we do know where THAT part of the dream came from) and all the other teams have assistants, but you're all alone to cook and serve just as efficiently as the others. Wow, that was a LONG night. I never did get all the plates done and was actually glad when the alarm went off at 5 am.

However, a couple of nights ago, I had a really strange dream that kept shifting genre. It was a shorter dream, and it kept starting over, with me playing a different role each time. At first I helped kidnap a bus driver, then the next time I helped the bus driver escape. The third iteration, the bus driver and I were falling in love, and by the fourth time, we were married with an adorable little boy.

When the alarm went off that next morning, I was almost melancholy to let it go. That boy felt like a real son and as I was coming to consciousness, I just felt the ache of leaving him behind and entering my real world. Of course, I did eventually wake up fully and realized that my own kids were needing me to keep them on track for the “get ready for school” three ring circus. I shook it off as I took off my mask and went on with my day.

What's your weirdest dream? Care to interpret mine that just kept changing? Have you ever just wanted to just stay in the dream you were having?


~Tina

12 comments:

JoJo said...

I always want to stay in my cool dreams, and all of them are pretty weird. I've kept dream journals from time to time, but I just can't seem to remember them anymore. I was pretty good about writing them down when I was in high school. So I like looking back on them and reading my descriptions really brings back the dream.

Out west I used to have these amazing beachcombing dreams that took place here on Cape Cod...I was finding lots of vases, marbles, cup plates, Fenton glass, all buried in the sand and greedily stuffing them into a bag. I haven't had them since I moved back. I often wonder if the dreams meant that the treasure I was looking for in life was here. As it turns out, it's true.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Maybe you were playing out a Choose Your Own Adventure story in your dreams?

Suzanne Furness said...

Wow, I wonder what it all meant! Dreams can be strange things, sometimes they are so vivid they stay with you all day, other times you wake up and instantly forget them (well I do anyway)!

Have a good weekend.

Brian Miller said...

weirdest dream...i am being pursued through the woods at night....when i am caught and the attacker pulls a knife, the moon catches his face and i see my own...then plunge the knife into my chest....

yep, dont take much to psycho analyze that...ha...

Kate @ Another Clean Slate said...

I usually dream about real life things then wake up confused about whether or not they happened. Are you exhausted when you wake up?

Andrew Leon said...

I'll have to think about the dream thing; I don't have an answer at the moment.

D.G. Hudson said...

I'd say it was an unfolding of a book with four or so parts. So, now you need to write it. Add some conflict and stir.

I hate those never ending dreams, where we are consigned to a work on an endless loop.

Nicole said...

You have a cool knack for articulating the events of your dream after they occur. I can only remember the details of mine right after I've awakened. The details fizzle out as the day progresses. Ah well! lol. You and the machine appear to be co-existing in a functional state of weirdness, as frienemies...which could be tolerable since the alternative seems more terrorizing...better to go with the point of most comfort and/or sanity, I guess.

Yeah, I do know where the 200-plate catering task came from...in fact, I've been on top of that "competition" for weeks now :)

I wish I could tell you my weirdest dream but unfortunately I've had so many throughout my life that it's hard to rank them from odd to most odd. Yes, I have wanted to just stay in a dream that I was having....usually they tend to either be the fun ones where it seems like I'm getting something that I've actually been waiting for or looking forward to in real life, or the naughty ones that I'm obviously not going to talk about in the comments section of your blog. Ha!

A lot of my dreams tend to consist of me being killed or run over by a car or some type of uncomfortable situation that causes me to wake up yelling. So far as I can recall, I've had dreams like these since I was a teenager and my mother has heard me yelling stuff and then, when I finally wake up and say to her "did you see that person/animal/object doing (insert weird thing here)," she tells me I was just dreaming.

I wish for you more fun, entertaining dreams that, at the very least, make you giggle so much that your hubbie and boys get jealous because they think they're missing out on something cool. Now that I think about it, I wish we all had dreams like that. Wouldn't that be something?! I know that might sound a bit unrealistic to wish only enjoyable dreams for everybody in the world...but hey...a girl can dream, right?!!

~Nicole

Lucy said...

I know where the catering dream came from lol.

I am awful at remembering my dreams. On occasion I will remember a vivid dream and if I tell my husband or kids about it they usually laugh but I have to tell it right away or poof it is gone. I probably should write it down.

Rachel said...

I had one weird dream where I was supposed to go on the highway and kill giant slugs that were there. I don't even think they were attacking anything. They were just sort of sliming up the highway and I was sent to kill them all. I'm not sure what my weirdest dream actually is, but that one is up there. I did blog about one dream I had that I could probably turn into a book though. haha

Jo said...

I haven't been dreaming much since I got my CPAP machine, but I do sleep pretty well with it. I am glad you have reached the cease fire stage. Glad I never had any of those problems. No claustrophobia here.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Tina - well I'm glad you and the CPAP m/c have become friends .. but not sure about the dreams .. thankfully I don't do it often -

Cheers Hilary