random thoughts – Day 1,329 – (Monday) – recurring

For chunks of my life, there have been recurring dreams. Not always full dreams, but very often the same or similar settings. Bridges. Water. Bridges over water.  Laurel Hill Cemetery (Fitchburg). A massive hotel. An airport. Stuck in traffic on the way to the airport. My locker in high school. The dorm in Boston where I spent one semester of my collegiate academic life. At home during a home invasion.

When I was a kid and in high school and college, there were dreams involving water. There were oceans, lakes, rivers, pools, and I was usually in the water, but not in a fun way. It was almost always under the water, being tumbled as if in a clothes dryer. Gasping for air. Panicking. Drowning. I would wake up with my heart pounding. As a result of the water dreams, I was not an awake life fan of swimming. Much later in adulthood, I read somewhere that dreams about drowning represented feeling overwhelmed in life. That certainly fit.

Dreams set in high school were the typical ones – I can’t find my locker or remember the combination. I show up at school on finals day and realize I forgot to attend class all semester. The finals dreams was said to represent feeling unprepared for whatever is going on in awake life. Yup.

The home invasion dreams were vivid. I was usually with the boyfriend at the  house we lived in together, and several armed, masked people were busting down the doors and entering the house with a lot of yelling and weapons raised. Once, the setting was the massive apartment in Worcester I moved into later. After that boyfriend and I broke up, those dreams stopped, and it was no surprise reading that home invasion dreams have to do with not feeling secure.

In the airport dreams, I would be in a taxi headed to the airport with time running out to make it in time. I’m ripping through my purse and baggage, frantically looking for my passport. Then I realize it’s still at home or I never even had one. One time, the passport was found, but at the airport the escalators and stair cases flipped like the slats on window blinds and formed a smooth metal pyramid that I had to scale to get to Paris. This dream category is still a mystery. 

This morning, right before it was time to get up, there was a weird dream in process. I was with several work colleagues staying in some unnamed town for some unknown reason. We were preparing for an excursion for which I was dressed inappropriately in a summer dress and sandals. I wanted shoes and socks because my feet were cold and a jacket from my room which was oddly allegedly my real room at the dorm in Boston. The dream building didn’t come anywhere close to matching the dorm building and the hallways and room numbers kept changing so I couldn’t find my room. My feet were freezing, I was waiting for elevators and jogging through a massive and constantly changing building and getting frustrated knowing that people were waiting for me.

When I woke up, my feet were also cold in awake life because during the night they got hot and I took off my socks. I felt confused from the dream, but it was time to wake up which also felt like a relief. I don’t remember reading an analysis for dreams with buildings that keep changing. My best uninformed, off the cuff, winging it guess is that it has to do with how life keeps changing. Or something.

Candle.

The slippers for my chilly feet usually live somewhere near the bed, wherever they are tossed the night before. One foot found its slipper right away, but the other one was off to the side. I bent forward to grab the slipper and the upper left of my forehead slammed into the corner of the small dresser that sits near the bed. Hard. It felt like here was a dent in my head, but there was no blood. Nothing like a blow to the head to kick off the week.

Downstairs, instead of immediately starting the coffee, an ice pack from the freezer was applied to my forehead. Looking in the mirror, it didn’t really look like much of anything. Coffee making was done with one hand while the ice pack was held to my head with the other. 

Now, 14 hours after the event, it’s me, a two-wick “Autumn Wreath” Yankee Candle, a cup of blueberry tea, and the lump on my forehead. The discoloration of a bruise is sure to come, and I’ll be wishing I still had bangs to hide it. If only smashing my head had been part of the sleeping dream instead of the waking reality.