Day 189 Question 189:

Do you ever have recurring dreams? What are they about?

Do you ever have those days where it feels like something unidentifiable if surrounding you and you can’t shake it?  Over the past few nights I have stayed at my parent’s house because they are visiting my sister in New York.  Obviously sleeping at their house is foreign to me because I rarely stay there.  My sleep has been different from what it is at my own place.  I dream quite often (which is a side effect of my medicine) but it seems like my dreams have been extra vivid since staying at my parent’s house.  I woke the other morning after having a dream I did not at all want to wake from.  I was at my old Middle School for some sort of reunion event.  I remember standing in the hall with someone whose face I cannot remember and holding onto him really tight.  I know he only had 3 weeks before being deployed for a year and a half.  I remember pulling away from him and looking at him and saying, “I don’t know what I am going to do without you.”  I remember feeling so much love for this person but also feeling so much sadness because we were going to have to be apart for so long.  It was creepy in a way because what I felt in this dream was the love that I always talk about…it felt so real and natural.  I drifted in and out and could not hold onto the dream or the feeling.  When I awoke I felt that sinking in my chest because it did feel as if something was missing.

I find dreams to be so fascinating.  I know very little about dream interpretation or the mechanics of the brain and how our daily lives are linked with what we dream about.  I do not have a specific dream that I have over and over again but there are themes that seem to play over and over in my dreams.  This is going to sound so wacky but I have dreams almost regularly about disgustingly filthy public bathrooms.  I have no idea what this connects to in my conscious life.  I also find it very interesting that I quit smoking almost 10 years ago and I will still have dreams a few times a year in which I smoke cigarettes (usually in a bar or social setting) and when I wake up I have to figure out whether or not I really smoked (which I never did).  The strange thing is that in my dreams, I had quit smoking and I start up again and I always have a feeling of guilt because I had not smoked for so long and I completely broke the long stretch.  I have had dreams several times about my teeth breaking or coming out in large pieces.  I have had several dreams about being hunted down by a madman or driving my car into water.  I have had the naked in public dream more than once as well as being pregnant (and I am usually always rubbing my big pregnant belly).

I do believe that our dreams do tell stories in a way.  They have a connection to our lives if even in just a slight way.  The dream I had the other night of the face-less man really did shake me because it made me feel like something was missing in my life.  I am extremely happy in life and love everything that I have and all of my opportunities but for a very long time I have always felt like there was someone or something missing.  I have always felt like there was a disconnect in my life…that piece that would help me make sense of things.  I sometimes wonder if our dreams are trying to tell us something.  Intimacy and romantic relationships are the aspect in my life that I have the hardest time with.  I just don’t know what to do or what I want when it comes to committing myself to another person (for lack of better words).  Recently I started talking to a guy online and we have chatted on the phone a few times.  We actually met probably 2 months ago (virtually) and we were chatting and texting then he all of a sudden just stopped talking to me.  I didn’t take it seriously because we hadn’t met or anything so I just blew it off.  He contacted me about a week ago apologizing, telling me he got wrapped up in work and he needed to balance his life better.  We emailed and talked on the phone and I still felt skeptical.  He mentioned meeting but it would be so casual and he would mention meeting up late at night or on a whim.  I really just stopped putting in the effort because in all honesty, I am sick of meeting one after another that puts no effort in.  I know it would be a first date/initial meeting so it wouldn’t have to be over the top but for once I would like to be asked out on a proper date and have a man be kind and respectful.  After years and years and years of no effort being put in, I have just given up…maybe I exude something to men that makes them think they don’t have to put effort in….I really don’t know.  It hurts my feelings and I shut that part of my life out because I am over that feeling of not being important enough for someone to even try….a person can only feel that way for so long.  This is not an entry of woe is me and I know it seems that I have gone off topic….but in truth my dream tugged at my heart strings.  I am a woman that would love to have the companionship of a man that involves intimacy of course but also someone that is my best friend…someone that doesn’t make me feel bad about myself but instead lifts me up….and I would do the same for them.  My dream made me feel that way….it made me feel a love that was easy and natural….a love with an unspoken understanding of each other.

I am kind of all over the place as you can see.  My heart is always in this state of romance (as strange as that sounds) which I think plays into my dreams at night.  I believe I am being tested in certain ways….tested of my strength through my dreams and through my day to day life.  I think sometimes my dreams sometimes cue me to test my strength….to show me that I am stronger than I sometimes believe I am or feel that I am.  Right now I do feel like crying a little but because my heart is heavy and I do feel a twinge of loneliness but I am reminding myself in the same that crying and feeling lonely are not signs of weakness…they are what make me human.  Sometimes I try to be super human by acting like I don’t care when in truth I really do.  Things bother me sometimes.  I can be fragile and sensitive.  I believe my dreams sometimes challenge me (especially the frightening ones) so I am able to see that life is not so bad and I am way more courageous than I think I am.