Dreams are funny things. By funny I don't mean laughing-funny, I mean weird-funny. I'm one of those people who often wakes out of a dream and thus remembers some of it for a very brief while. A few minutes later I'm aware of having had one but the details.... rarely recalled, just a feeling, an awareness I had been dreaming. More than that is unusual. Occasionally later in the day something will prompt that feeling to return, but totally without any context.
This morning is a good example, though bits of memory exist. The main part of the dream was about swimming across a wide river I identified as the St. Croix, somewhere around Stillwater. as judged by wideness and how populated it was, though all landmarks were missing It was just a flat, calm river, brownish water somehow clear, not dirty. The swim was totally enjoyable. There had been a point to swimming and who I was swimming with, something to accomplish, but already fading.
I was there with people I know. Who? No clue, just identified as people I knew and was talking with during the swim. Who expects logic in a dream? I don't, during the dream or in retrospect. But at some point we were done swimming and it was time to get out of the water. I needed to call my parents.
So I did, partly while still in the river, partly up on dry land. I complimented them on having such a nice river to swim in. It never occurred to me to question why this was their river of course, just something to say while I was checking in.
Around that time, the real world started to intrude. An actual thunderstorm was going on outside, welcomed in an awake state to water newly planted flowers in the gardens so I didn't have to haul a hose around later in the real day. It was expected and welcomed, as well as interrupting the dream. Rolling over kicked my bad shoulder into complaint, completing waking me up out of the dream, and the few steps to the bathroom progressed through a series of ideas as I finished shedding the dream. First, I was glad it was a nice call with my parents. The sudden change in head position produced a bit of vertigo, where I bounced into the wall next to the door frame and had to cling for a couple seconds instead of falling, coupled with it occurring to me to recall my actual age and wonder if I'm this old, how old can my parents be? Now stable in balance and again walking normally toward my first morning goal, I realized both of my parents had died over a decade earlier. Our phone call hadn't happened.
Yep, there it was. I was now fully awake, back in the real world, aware of the needs of this particular day, and enjoying listening to rain on the roof. It was still in the one-o'clock hour though I'd never remember just where, my shoulder ached, it a was time I could take my thyroid pill but still had to wait for my Tylenol another hour to kill the ache if still needed, and wait for daylight to check the rain guage to see how much rain we'd have gotten by then. Since I was now fully aware, what was on the TV, recorded since I went to bed? I needed to change position to a sitting one, meaning the room with the television. Or maybe back to sleep? Or maybe I should blog first, since I had a topic? If I went back to sleep it would have vanished in its entirety.
Hey, at least it wasn't one of those dreams where I couldn't find where the car was parked! Even while in bed during those, a part of me knew I wouldn't be able to walk that far in order to locate my car wherever it was, as these dreams happened before my knee replacements. Those themes were the usual way my brain was getting used to my retirement, taking away my car, my ability to identify streets and towns I needed to go to, nor could I read the labels on the packages so I could tell where to deliver them. I still recall one in a dream going to Appleton but nobody would tell me if it was the one in Minnesota or in Wisconsin, and I needed to hurry! And whatever building I happened to be inside of, there was never an acceptable bathroom to be used, lacking stall doors or anything more than an open hole on the floor, a broken pipe protruding a few inches. I just couldn't go there! I decided, as the shock of waking from those dreams happened, that was a very good thing!
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