Dreamscapes

The REM brain is a fascinating thing. It can tell us a lot about ourselves, while also being unable to perform what have become the most elementary of mental tasks. Theories abound about why we dream, who does or doesn't (we all do), why it's necessary, what it all means. ( FYI Freud was coo-coo!) I don't claim to be any kind of scientist or researcher on the subject. I do, however, happen to be one of those people who remembers a lot of my dreams.

I tend to wake up in the mornings directly out of a dreaming state.  Researchers now tell us that this is the only way we can remember dreams, and that unless you make some kind of note of what they were, whether mentally or in, say, written form, those memories are fleeting.

Firstly, I can tell you I dream in color. I wonder at the people who claim they don't. Are they for real? Is this perhaps a form of color blindness, one of those things that we who don't have it find it hard to comprehend? Anyway, for me at least, this is one of the ways that dream experiences match real life.

One current theory on why we need to dream is that all the jumble of stuff that goes on while we are awake gets sorted out, organized, solved, remembered, and whatever else we do with it, while we sleep, and dreaming is an important part of that. I'll go with the problem solving bit of that. I frequently wake to find myself working on a problem of some kind, and often dive right back down into that dream to keep working on it until something that makes sense only in the dream world declared itself the solution. Occasionally, I wake up enough to realize that the problem is one that doesn't actually need solving and I don't need to hit the pillow again.

Take yesterday morning. I'm secretary for the club, and in the dream I was taking minutes of a meeting that was tasked with negotiating terms for some kind of deal. Whatever these were, they were to go and be presented to the larger group for approval. Nothing in a dream is ever that straightforward, of course. I had not been informed of either meeting, and was totally unprepared. My solution was to take minutes on the inside of a white plastic jar lid with a red pen. If that wasn't enough of an issue, the meeting was held in a large room that somebody was busy moving out of, dollies and hand carts busy and noisy all around. I couldn't hear much of what was being said. What I could hear, as soon as it was written, was immediately covered over in snow. In wiping out the snow, all the red ink ran, making it impossible to recover the data. I tried to recall what I could, but again, magical snow, vanishing words.... 

At that point I awoke. It was just enough that my  more rational brain decided for me that this wasn't a problem that needed solving, allowing myself to finish waking up. And yes, the white and red were definitely colors in the dream. They had importance to its plot.

My dreams can tell me things about my sleeping body that I don't otherwise recognize. They recognize pain or marvel at the unexpected lack of it. They always manage to tell me when my bladder is in need of some TLC. It's not that I feel the pressure. Instead, the dream me starts looking for an acceptable toilet. I say acceptable, because in my dream I never find one. I might open the stall door and there's a hole in the floor where the toilet has been removed. It might be a series of toilets with no separations or doors for privacy, or the designated bathroom simply isn't one, or the guys are using it, or none is anywhere to be found in the building. Nor the next three I search through. When that kind of dream finally wakes me, it's time for a quick jaunt to a real bathroom. Dream mission accomplished.

I hadn't realized just how necessary that frustration was. I'd gotten tired of those recurring dreams. Having read somewhere that one can suggest to themself before going to sleep that dreams go in a certain direction, I tried it one night many years ago. The result was very effective. The dream changed, and I woke to a wet bed. Oops. The message got changed back immediately.

There are other frustrations, kinds of problems my dreams can't help me solve. I can never find where I parked my car. This is usually one of those work dreams, where I'm still a courier, telling myself or others that I was planning to retire real soon, or had but came back or.... Having delivered my package, I need to get back to the car for the next delivery. I wind up looking for the car blocks away from the drop, which makes absolutely no sense whatever since we always park as close to the door we go in as possible. These dreams always remind me that either my knees hurt or that they don't any longer. Whichever the dream picks, the knees are always an awareness while I hunt for that car.

This kind of work dream is much easier than the kind where I've gotten the package and I need to figure out where it goes. My REM brain can't read! I can't see an address, and have to ask dispatch as soon as I can get past the humiliation of not being able to read. Of course, I never quite get to that point. Apparently it doesn't recognize numbers either, which probably explains why I can never make a phone call that connects. On top of all that it also has completely lost its map skills. All the streets or towns are places I can't remember how to get to. I can puzzle over a package address for - the dream would have me believe - hours, and I'd be days late for a 1 hour service and still be unable to finish. These are the dreams most likely to drag me back down into a repeat. Apparently my REM brain is a much a task master as I am when awake.

The dreams occasionally tell me things about how I'm feeling emotionally that I haven't recognized and still may not for a long time. I clearly recall waking up shocked by one where I was trying to murder my mother. Of course I never had those kind of feelings or thoughts about her! But a complicated relationship? You betcha. I finally let myself start figuring out not only that there were issues, but what they were, how they affected me, and in the process learned more about my mother as well. I learned, for example, that scolding and shaming, while well meant as an expression of love and one's hopes and dreams for that child, are not a particularly good way to express that. The message came across as, "I'm telling you that I love you and here's all the things that are wrong with you." It didn't do me a bit of good when it came to choosing my first husband, didn't help me recognize how toxic and abusive he was, didn't help me value myself enough to get out. That horrible dream started me on the path of working that all through.

The last kind of thing my REM brain tells me is that it's time to go to sleep again. It starts screwing up my thoughts or messing with what I'm reading. I'll suddenly realize that I've just followed the story off the page and into wholly new territory. It kinda makes sense but is nowhere what the author intended. Something being said on the TV starts me putting words and thoughts together in a meaningless disjointed jumble that seems to make sense only in dreams. Or as my head hits the pillow, my brain will present me with the shades of the previous dream, the one I woke from, no details, just the elusive sense of what it might have been about. That's when I know I can just drop straight off. Otherwise, I might be lying awake for hours, maybe even have to get up to blog about it!

That's why it's 1:38 AM.