DREAMING OUR LIVES

What did you dream last night?

Even if you don't remember, for at least part of your sleeping time, you were living a life apart and distinct from your waking life.

You may have been with friends that you know or folks that you know only in your dreams.
You may have been in a familiar setting or exploring  a place to which you had never been.

 In Deeper Writing, I wrote the following in a writing invitation related to dreaming:

We dream at night-- adventures beyond our wildest imagination and hopes, tragedies more sorrowful than the Greeks ever wrote, and sometimes horrors that inspire more terror than the creepiest films created in Hollywood.   At night we lie in our beds waiting to enter a world not accessible through the door of slumber. Some sleep worlds we enter eagerly, welcoming the rush of color and vague people we know only with our eyes closed.  Other dreams we dread, and they may recur night after night. ( Holland, 2012)

I dream every night.  I love to dream. And unlike many folks,  I dream in color--- and I actually remember my dreams.

I have several recurring dreams that always cause bewilderment and frustration -- in these dreams I am always losing something.

In one recurring dreams, I have missed a particular class for the entire semester. Upon discovery of this fact, I am frantically looking for the building where the class meets and can't  find it.   I spend my entire dream searching.

In a similar recurring dream I am on vacation- sometimes with friends or my husband, sometimes alone.
I am searching-- this time for my hotel room.  I always know the number of the room (usually --789 or 817). .

The other item I spend much of my dreaming life searching for is my perpetually lost purse.

I am not sure what meaning these lost things have for my waking life. But they are definitely  part of my dreaming world.

In a recurring pleasant  and welcome  dream, there is a beautiful stone cottage in which I routinely find myself.  It seems to be mine.  I love this home-- but I have never seen it in my waking life. Maybe someday...

In my scariest dreams, I am being chased by an unseen person or some unidentified entity. I am safe only when I reach the porch of my paternal grandmother's house. ( She has been dead since I was 6, but her home still remains my place of refuge.)

As we search for meaning in dreams, we may turn to our friends.  Listen to what I dreamed last night. What do you think it means?

We may also turn to a dream dictionary, matching  the theme of our dream as closely as we can to the universal dream topics and symbols listed.  Two of my favorites are:

       
Click here to analyze your dream online.

For many years, folks, including myself, have used dreams to determine the best numbers to play in the lottery.  My grandparents lived in a state that had a legal lottery long before my own state. Most of  the older folks I knew had dream books.

Dream books were the quintessential reference tool for determining your lucky numbers based on last night's dream.

Unlike most people my dreaming life tends to spill over in my waking life ..often.

Like all of us. I sometimes experience deja vu moments. The difference is that I can usually pinpoint the night I actually dreamed the moment and why I have that  I-have been here/done this/seen this/heard this
feeling.

It alarms those who would prefer that dreams remain restricted to sleeping hours when I can say exactly what words will come out  of someone's mouth next and next and next... for a sustained conversation.

It raises eyebrows when you call me to tell me you had an accident, and I tell you where... because I dreamed it last week.

It puzzles folks when I call  out of the blue to check on them--- I never say I dreamed you were sick-- I just ask how you are doing. 

I am still puzzling over a recent dream in which I was given red rubber gloves-- in the dream I understood they were boxing gloves--although they looked more like cleaning gloves.

What did you dream about last night?

Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

One of  my favorite poems when I was a child was dream-based:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night 

Sailed off in a wooden shoe,— 

Sailed on a river of crystal light 

Into a sea of dew. 

"Where are you going, and what do you wish?" 

The old moon asked the three. 

"We have come to fish for the herring-fish 

That live in this beautiful sea; 

Nets of silver and gold have we," 

Said Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. -

                     

To  read  Eugene Field's entire poem click here.

What did you dream last night? What have you dreamed the last few nights?

We can mine our dreams for information and insight about our own lives, perspectives on the worlds-- and other worlds.

 Click here to read two poems  I have written about dreams--Dreamscape about dream knowledge and The Key about a specific dream.

What objects in your dream are prominent? 

What do these objects mean to you in your waking life?  

What do they mean in the context of the dream?

What patterns do you notice?

What insight do you gain as you consider the dream?

Write  poem, story or essay based on your dream.