Sleep

whenever i want to all i have to do is dream

“All human beings are also dream beings.
Dreaming ties all mankind together.”
– Jack Kerouac

“I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke.
Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly,
or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?”
– Zhuangzi

There were so many good quotes, I couldn’t pick just one. Luckily, blogs hold no boundaries, except for the fact that I can’t type HTML code to save my life.

Are you someone who dreams?  My mother is someone who never does.  When I was a child, they were impossibly ridiculous and made no sense, bordering the idea of a bad LSD trip.

(Not that I’ve ever partaken in drug use, or condone its usage, but keep reading and you’ll understand the comparison.)

Pilot (the lucky shit) dreams about (what else?) flying airplanes, confirmed by the airplane noises he makes in his sleep.

Understandably, those who newly share a roof have all types of quirks to learn about, and get used to, with each other.

Having said that…  You can imagine my surprise when I discovered I was sleeping next to an FA-18 Superhornet every night.

I eventually learned how to sleep again after a few short months.

Sigmund Freud said that dreams were repressed desires and emotions.  As much as I appreciate the theories Dr. Freud has provided for countless students of psychology to analyze for the rest of their lives, I have to disagree with ol’ Siggy here.

Personally, I don’t really give much significance to dreams. I’m a believer that dreams are an amalgamation of recent events in your life, things you’re worried about, people you’ve seen, etc.

As an adult, half of my dreams end up being either about my time at work from my Daily Life, or simply somewhat-normal conversations with people in/from my life, like living a second life in my sleep, then waking up bummed because now I have to “re-live” a normal day that was similar to my dreams.

The other half?  Well, sometimes the dreams are just about random, crazy stuff.

What about color?  I’ve heard that those who dream in color tend to be more creative, but I’ve never met anyone who dreams in black and white, (or for you Techies, grayscale).

Also Freud mentioned that dreams can be suppressed sexual desire.  Again, not to belittle the great Doc Siggy’s advice, I have to, again, discredit this theory.  (Also, gross!)  If this proves true, I think I’m screwed. Pun intended.

Case in point: When I was eight, during a time of little stress in my life, family was healthy, school was pretty good, etc., I dreamt about being chased by a puma through a grocery store, while I parkoured myself over the checkout stands to safety in the rafters of the building.  Basically spending the entire dream scared shitless.

Analyze that.

If dreams are about repressed sexual desires, then the dream I had about sitting at a school desk in an empty room realizing I’ve left my wallet in my locker has a much deeper meaning than me just being my normal (if somewhat forgetful) self.

Below are some interesting articles and websites dedicated to analyzing why we dream, dream interpretations, and the great theorists who studied this field.

As for me? I think I’ll just take a sleeping pill tonight.

What are you dreams typically like? Are they the ones you hear about in studies such as the ability to fly or some other superpower?  Are they somewhat like random drug trips? (Not that I have ever done drugs, but jus’ sayin’.) Are they typically happy, scary, depressing, etc.?

Daily Writing Challenge

Day 24: Write, in second person, a dream your character is having. Whether it be a nightmare or something happier, describe the dream in its entirety.

The dense fog not only engulfed the streets, it hid you from view. You were standing alone by the bus stop, waiting to be picked up. Main street was completely deserted except for the beacon of red your soft knit sweater gave off, its color cutting through the thick layer of emptiness.

After pulling up to you, you raised your eyebrow at me.

“It’s you,” you said.

Nodding in reply, then gesturing for you to climb in, you skeptically accepted the quiet offer of being driven home.

Not speaking for several seconds, your fingers played with the drawstring of your hoodie while gazing out the window. Taking in your soft brown hair, your faded, holey jeans.  You were wearing a pair of gray Converse sneakers.  Your old lime green backpack resting in your lap, no doubt holding two or three books that you always seemed to carry around.

“Why’d you come back?” you whispered at the window.

Turning the wheel, the car was placed on the side of the empty road. Turning to your face were the only three words that mattered. “I needed you.”

Recognizing a flash of pain you, narrowed your eyes, analyzing any slight tremor of my hand which never came, any faltering glance of my eye which never wavered, watchful of every potential emotion that might escape the blank stare I gave you.  Anything to try to catch any false meaning of those words.  You were dissatisfied with the truth.

“You neededme,” parroting, but giving an annoyed acknowledgement of the choice of words.

A slight nod and simple acknowledgement of “Yes” was all that could be offered.

You blew out a breath you apparently had been holding and stared at the condensation on the window.  After several heartbeats your face snapped back to my gaze.

“Where the hell have you been for the last year?  I haven’t seen you since graduation and now you decide to roll into town without so much as a phone call or postcard the entire time you were away?”

Tears appeared in your eyes, and it was every ounce of strength to not touch your face. You wouldn’t have wanted me to, even though it would have made you feel better.  Your voice was strained as you spat out the words as if they tasted sickly in your mouth as you said them.  “I don’t know what you’ve been doing, where you’ve been or who you’ve been with. I’m not sure I want to know or even care. All I do know is that you owe me an explanation, and that I don’t want to listen to it.”

You waited for a response.  You didn’t get one.  A heavy silence filled the space in the car as you stared at me.  Your hand raised up to strike me, catching you wrist, feeling your warm skin and your elevated pulse ricocheted under my fingers.  I kissed your fingertips, then took your face in my palms.  Pulling you close, we kissed. An angry kiss, all too painfully aware that although there was much to talk about, oh so much, we weren’t ready to face the truth. Sitting there, feeling you again, none of it mattered.  For the next few moments, everything would wait while I was holding you.

After.  Only after would you then be ready to hear, but not before.

death to the early bird and hand me my fucking coffee!

Just pass the coffee, will you?

If you haven’t noticed already, I’m a bit of a night owl. And that suits my purpose just fine. Some of my best work has happened at the odd hour of 3 o’clock in the morning. The blog says I may have made multiple posts on the same day, when in truth, I was up until the wee hours of the morning (also known as deep night, those hours between 12:00am-4:59am), writing a post, only to turn around and do another one later that evening.

Although, again noting no siblings, I look back on my youth. Remembering that I spent quite a bit of time in bed staring at the upper bunk.  My mind would drift as soft Christmas lights would change their blinking pattern and alternate their color combinations.  (Strung up Christmas twinkle lights were my version of a night light, and much prettier.)

Note to parents: Twinkle lights are awesome for dark-fearing children, because they can use the excuse that they love Christmas to their friends.

 Also, this was before the ‘fad’ that stringing up white lights along the edge of your ceiling was delegated as a ‘hipster’ thing to do.)

Many evenings were spent just lost in my thoughts. (Well, as deep a thought a youth can have, I suppose.) Replaying recent TV shows or movies in my head.  You could say this was the time I first began making up stories. Just me, under the safety of my Smurfs blanket making believe I was a princess, a spy, a farmer, whatever. There was a brief period of time when I aspired to become a fire truck.  Not a firefighter, the actual truck. (What, can I say? Sirens are awesome.)  Never had any issues with monsters under the bed.

Note to parents: The way to keep monsters out of your closet and away from under the bed? Show the kids how their closet is full. That the children themselves can barely fit in there, so how can a monster?  Roll out drawers for storage of off-season clothing fills up the space underneath the bed.

Monsters? What monsters? There’s no way a monster can fit under your bed with the enormous Christmas sweater Aunt Mabel knitted for you to wear next year.

What?

Yes…

Yes, you’re wearing the sweater…  Don’t argue with me young lady!

Aunt Mabel worked very hard on that sweater. Just because she has cataracts and made one sleeve a half of a foot longer than the other is not reason enough to ignore such a gift!

Bring back the sweater and those matches to me this instant, young lady!

Mornings, however, are the bane of my existence. I’ll admit to having the slightest, fleeting moment of homicide upon initial waking.  You know that woman, stumbling around in her bathrobe, hair sticking out worse than Einstein on a bad day, mumbling to herself and others around her the gentle, harmless sentence along the lines of:

Slowly hand me back my f****** coffee NOW and no one will be permanently scarred!

Yeah… Sorry about that. I was… um… not myself.

My ever faithful and dutiful husband, Pilot (sadly finding out he was part of THEM. The oh-so-dreaded “Morning Person” people), learned quite quickly that I require at least one hour of no agitation upon waking. On a time-crunched day, a reduced and painfully necessary reduction to 59 minutes of no agitation upon waking.  Don’t worry, he’s survived stitches before.

<Lightly shaking me awake to the vibration standard of 10.5 on the Richter Magnitude Scale.>

“Sweetie, it’s time to get up.”

Mmmm…

“Sweetie, your alarm is going off.”

Mmmm… <pulls covers up tighter, bats hand away from my shoulder>

“Sweetie, your alarm has been going off for ten minutes now, and… we have neighbors.”

Mmmm… <rolls over, shoves pillow on top of head.>

As you can tell by the timing of this post, I’m burning the midnight oil once again.

So, readers, I want to know!  Which are you?  A morning person, or a night owl? Are you the early bird who catches the worm, or a evening person who doesn’t have to deal with worms?

What are ways that help you get up in the morning?

Mine’s an alarm that sounds like an H-bomb warning system going off and provides a mild cardiac arrest each morning. Pilot has learned to accept this as exercise and getting his heart rate up a little bit extra each day.

Oh, and coffee.  Lots and lots of coffee.  (Did I mention I live in Seattle?)

Daily Writing Challenge

Day 7: FREE DAY! Write any scene you want!

The dry leaves crunched beneath their sneakers as the girls wandered along a compact dirt path. Hand in hand, they continued listening to birds chirp throughout the empty branches, beginning to settle in to their nests for the evening.

It was nice walking, Margaret preferred gentle quiet. Lorelei, not so much.  Usually Lorelei was babbling on about a new rock band or her friends from school. Whatever was bothering Lorelei tonight must have been weighing heavily on her mind. Margaret was patient. She knew that her sister would share when she was ready, and if it was causing Lorelei to be quiet for a change, it must have been serious.

“Mags?”

Lorelei’s voice appeared in Margaret’s mind familiar, but tonight was subdued. Her voice did not carry the cheerful spirit it typically held. Instead, tonight it was pensive and thoughtful.

“Yeah, Leelee?” Margaret looked over to her sister; eyebrows raised and tried to keep her face open.

“Do you remember mom and dad?” Lorelei had stopped and turned to face her now.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you remember them? What color their eyes were, what their voices sounded like?

Margaret thought for a moment. “Yeah, I do.”

Lorelei’s voice was small, and she was looking down at the ground now.  “I don’t sometimes.  Remember, I mean.” Margaret’s heart sunk deep into her chest.

“I was only five at the time.  Sometimes I try to think back, but their faces are starting to get fuzzy. Things like their noses, or their ears.”

Margaret put her other hand on Lorelei’s cheek and began to speak and try to console her sister. “Leelee-“

“What if by the time we’re adults I’ve forgotten them completely? It’ll be like they never existed or something!” Lorelei burst into tears and sniffed. Sliding her sleeve over her thumb, she wiped her nose with it.  Margaret pulled her handkerchief, their mother’s handkerchief, from her pocket and gently dabbed at Lorelei’s face.

“Leelee, do you remember when we were little and you took that entire bottle of caramel sauce and sprayed all of the walls in the house with it?”

Sniff. “Yeah.”  Lorelei looked up at her sister, her eyes puffy and slightly reddened from her tears.

“And what did mom and dad do?” Margaret looked pointedly at Lorelei with a small smile.  Lorelei burst out laughing.

“Daddy took my had and walked me over to mom and said, ‘Well, at least we know she’s determined! I was chasing her for a good ten minutes!’ And mom said, ‘I guess she just wanted the house filled with sweetness just like she is!’ ” Margaret and Lorelei were doubled over laughing at the memory, Lorelei wiping a tear away, this time not from sadness.

“You see?” Margaret put an arm around her sister.  “You haven’t forgotten them. As long as you remember they loved us no matter what, they’ll always be with us.”