Dissecting Dreams & Navigating Nightmares
67: what I have gained and learned while resting, what I’ve continued to learn by following my heart
The past week or so, I have had nightmares every night. (Hope I didn’t scare anyone with the cover image. I don’t really go over my dreams from recently, so the cover can so the talking for me.) I can’t help but think this has something to do with my anxiety over starting a new job. It’s a part-time job and it’s doing something I enjoy (doing art with kids), but it is a job and it is at a school. If you’ve been reading along with me a while, you’ve read about my time fighting in the teaching trenches and my hesitance to return.
When I was a full-time teacher, I had so many stress dreams about teaching and would sleep terribly. I once woke up saying one of my students’ names out loud during conference week. Zach said I would teach in my sleep, directing children in my dream, “Hey friend, grab a bubble.” (That’s “close your mouth please” in fun & friendly teacher speak.) But perhaps the craziest dreams I had while teaching was a science-fiction series I refer to as “Moth Mayhem.”
In the first dream of the series (lol), one of my only coworkers at my old school that I could talk to shocked the school by retiring at a staff meeting. But before she could leave leave the stage she was on, she grotesquely transformed into a massive moth with glowing green eyes. Following her transformation, other teachers began reforming as moths in a teacher pandemic of sorts.
Zach suspects dipping my toes back into teaching with this job, no matter how part-time, may be why I have been awakening at three or four in the morning in a hot sweat and full survival mode.
I am never able to control what I do in my dreams or what’s happening in them. I’ve always been an avid dreamer, with detailed images and fascinating stories making my dreams more than just scary images or a silly scenarios. When I’m dreaming, it’s more like I’m watching a 4-D movie that takes place in an alternate universe in which I am usually somewhere or someone very different.
“So, I let it happen again
I loved someone who’s indifferent.
That’s why I can’t sleep at night.”
I have a dream journal.
I am someone who likes to remember my dreams and I try to write them down as soon as I wake up. Many dreams I’ve had are still so crisp in my mind, even years afterwards.
When I was younger, I had a dream that my uncle was shooting hoops on a basketball court alone. The court was next to a post office which sat on the peak of a tall, Emperor’s-Groove-like mountain. Then, a t-rex, taller than the mountain he was standing on, came at my uncle, who fought the dinosaur valiantly with the smallest twig.
Why was he making things so hard on himself? Why was he facing it alone?
I can’t help but look further into my dreams, wondering what they’re trying to tell me. If I dream about someone I know, should I reach out to them? Do they need help?
Once, I was a secret agent being chased by many henchmen through a Walmart. I ended up surrounded and they all shot at me at the same time. I felt the bullets pierce the skin on my shins and then woke up with the worst leg cramps I have ever had in both legs.
There are not many dreams that I feel like I have the upper hand. Many times, I am someone who is not being looked at favorably. Most often, I am normal in my dreams. No one important. But I do treasure the dreams in which I am special, skilled, and trained in combat, stealthy escape, or some other cool, helpful thing.
When I first started dating Zach, I had a dream that I had cheated on Zach and showed up at a family function drunk, crying, and full of regret. I felt like I was watching the Grinch destroy Christmas, but it was me at a family gathering. I hid outside in the backyard where a cousin of Zach’s was also hiding. She passed me her cigarette. Then, I woke up.
My dreams are very obvious with their emotional metaphors, but the chokehold they have on me is something different. When I was dreaming, watching these events happen outside of myself, it wasn’t fast. I was in agony, watching myself make the worst decisions, say the worst things, and be in what seemed like the worst situation. I had no control over my life. Everyone around me, family and friends I loved and respected, looking down on me. They were silent, avoidant, and shaking their heads as I made a pathetic attempt to win Zach’s affection back.
The scariest feeling is feeling like I have no control over my life.
“Who knows how long
I’ve been awake now?
The shadows on my wall don’t sleep.
They keep calling me,
Beckoning…”
I once had a dream that I was being chased down the street and my feet were sinking into the cement. The next weekend at church, I swear, the person who had been chasing me in my dream was introduced as a new campus pastor. I had never met him before.
At one point, I thought I had some sort of psychic ability. Through my dreams, I saw what would happen in the future. Zach called this my intuition and I believed it was God-given. But I stopped believing in my intuition after I gave birth to Oakley, who I was surprised was a boy.
When I was younger, I had a dream my uncle (a different one) wasn’t able to taste strawberries and he gave me a small headshot of his smiling face. The next day, I found out he had been in a cycling accident the day I had the dream. This resulted in facial reconstruction surgery, for which they needed photos of him pre-accident. Due to his injuries, he lost part of his sense of taste— for sweet things.
Even though some of my dreams have felt as if I was seeing the future, I now see that dreams are windows into what is. In extremely creative ways, my dreams give me hints and peeks into the present, what’s happening around me and inside me. What feelings am I not allowing myself to feel fully? Which relationships or events in my life impacted me more than I realized? What’s happening around me that I’m not paying attention to?
Because my dreams are always so honest about the happenings in my heart, my dreams can feel so powerfully real for me, even if they sound ridiculous. I can never explain my dreams in a way that can transport someone into the feelings I experienced during the dream.
My dreams contain specific finalities. I almost never dream in first-person. The angles I see of myself make me feel like I am being watched. And I’m the one watching, sometimes from a seat in a movie theater. I never have peripheral vision. There is no rewinding or walking away. The story is so solid and defined. And when I awaken, my dreams often drift into my mind. I think on them and chew on them and they show me more about myself.
There is so much that we think we understand and think that we want until we are opened to something more.
“So tell me how it felt
When you walked on water?
Did you get your wish?”
And dreams are weird.
It seems like a waste of time to explain my dreams to other people. It can be awkward, revealing, oddly personal. Sometimes I share something I think is funny and no one laughs, or I share a dream that made me cry myself awake and they laugh like there was a punchline.
Dreams can seem very random, but I like to think that our brains are cleaning out thoughts we have yet to process or need to process more. Maybe that random nugget of memory was metaphorically swept out from underneath your metaphorical mind refrigerator.
Dissecting my dreams is one of my favorite pastimes. It’s important to me to figure out what a dream is communicating. For instance, I don’t have many dreams in first-person. Most all of my dreams have historically been about me watching myself in crazy situations, like an audience member in my own life.
I think, in many ways, I have been an observer or a participant of my own life more than I have had any control or leadership over it. What I wanted was very much shaped by the desires and expectations of those I loved and looked up to the most.
My parents want me to be a []. I would be so good at it! My teacher says I should be a []. The bully said I couldn’t be [] so I won’t, or I will— though only to spite them. The kid in my class wanted to be [] and I thought they were so cool. I went to church camp and they told me I should do something that pleases God and grows His kingdom. What does everyone else say I am good at and should be?
Dreaming of Disaster
Even though I have always wanted to be able to fly, I have only had floating dreams where I somehow save myself from falling to my death. If I had control over my dreams, Lil’ Gab would have spent most every night flying, but she didn’t. She couldn’t.
She did, however, have a reoccurring dream that a blue whale would drop on top of her house and squish her in her bed. (And no, I have never lived by the ocean, but it was terrifying nonetheless.)
She often dreamt, even throughout high school, that her elementary school caught fire and it spread throughout the entire neighborhood. My family and I were attempting to outrun the fire by bike.
Many many times, I have dreamt of tsunamis completely ruining summer vacations and tearing down beach houses, with huge waves pulling me or my family under.
Countless times, moreso in the past year, I have dreamt of desperately trying to escape a collapsing construction site. Sometimes the tsunami dreams collide with the construction ones and I wake up feeling just as tired as I was when I went to sleep.
All this to say, my dreams are trying to communicate a lot to me right now.
Monday Morning
Apart from some side gigs and my part-time job, we are unemployed and have been under a pretty enormous amount of stress. It’s been really hard to keep a positive attitude during a time like this one, where our bank account literally went down to negative 3-digits….
But, on Monday morning, I started the day as I usually do now, by cooking Oak breakfast. He has what we’ve been calling a “mini bottle” (as to not spoil his appetite for breakfast) and chooses a show or movie to watch while I cook. That morning, he chose to continue watching SING from the day before. Oak loved the performances in the final showcase and was boogying through his cheesy eggs and bites of bagel (or more realistically, chomps of cream cheese).
“Everybody needs a change,
A chance to check out the new.
But you’re the only one who sees
The changes you take yourself through.”
By the time we got to Tori Kelly’s number, he was jumping and dancing and asked Zach and I to uncozy ourselves from our comforter-on-couch combo to dance with him. I started jamming cuz I love SING and— with some encouragement— Zach ended up joining as well. Kida started running around us, tickling Oakley with her wet nose. As he giggled and we swirled around, a rush of gratitude slammed into the back of my eyes.
“Zach,” I nudged. “If we weren’t unemployed, we wouldn’t be dancing together as a family right now.”
He smiled and held me tight as I let the tears fall.
My future looks very different than I had planned it to be, but that feels exciting. I am realizing that we are building our own family, our own ways and traditions, our own lives. It’s difficult and scary and I am not always feeling thankful like I am now, but this— waking up next to my son, my husband, and my doggo and starting the day with a dance party— is my new dream. ✨
Weekly Subscriptions & Cancellations💁🏽♀️
the ideas and soundtracks I want running in my head, or not. (Oops forgot this last week)
🙋🏽♀️SUBSCRIBED to:
The idea that drawing can be taught. 😊
Weekly therapy. That’s what’s up.
Phoenix Pride emails. More events coming up!
THRIFTING! Like, real thrifting. Goodwill can be so fricken expensive!!
🤦🏽♀️UNSUBSCRIBED from:
Patriarchal norms.
Anyone posting pro-Trump content.
Answering unknown numbers. I’m no longer applying for jobs, so I know it’s yet another reminder to vote.
Trusting fear as my guide. I think fear has something to communicate to me, but should not steer the ship.
🌻ARTIST SHOWCASE🌻
@cheshsmiles!! (click for her linktree)
Chesh is a longtime friend of mine who is honestly some sort of shapeshifter AKA a seriously talented cosplayer. Can you believe these transformations?? Chesh is a wonderful friend, a gifted artist, and her and her partner have cosplayed countless characters. Chesh has always been an inspiration to me in many ways, but just one of those ways is living and loving proudly. Go check her out on Instagram! @cheshsmiles
Time for some TLCCC💕
Treating myself to: some thrifted items with my aunt from England! I even got my Halloween Costume for $8!
Listening to: I’ve been trying to listen through all the songs in my VIBE CHECK playlist, but it’s starting to feel like a chore. So, I am trying to listen to my music and my Car Jams & Garden of Jams playlists. Porter Robinson songs are still <3
Crafting: I have been cleaning out our office and reorganizing lots of spaces in our house. It’s been pretty time-consuming, but I’m excited! (Hire me to organize your stuff! Lol)
Craving: PBJ Sticks from Trader Joe’s!!!
Caring SO much about: Halloween Movies! Watching through the Twilight Series is necessary at this time of year. But I also got in my feels watching Casper and SUPER enjoyed Hocus Pocus this watch-around!
