I’m big on dreaming.
My dreams are always vivid, cockamamie storylines involving people from my day to day life. I remember them when I wake up for the most part, too. If I tell you I’ve had a dream about you, it does not mean I want to marry you and have your babies; it just means I met you once and ate pickles or too many Oreos before bed.
I’ve had dreams about lunching with Princess Di, being unable to halt my own ill-fated wedding, catching my best good work friend having sex with the boss (promotions don’t come easy, you know) and even about narrowly escaping mummies and such nonsense.
And fairly frequently, I dream about rooms. They’re typically newly discovered spaces in houses I’ve already been in a thousand times — my grandparents’ house, my apartment. You get the idea. But the rooms themselves are not familiar, and they’re lovely and covetable. Big airy spaces with floor to ceiling windows, secret closets, nooks for chairs, private baths. The trick is, once I leave them, I can’t get back. I spend the rest of the dream wandering, frustrated and feeling like I’ve lost something valuable and precious. And when I wake up, though these places never existed, I still feel a loss.
I didn’t dream about rooms last night, though. I dreamt about work. It’s been the theme lately – epic work nightmares that translate into the waking feeling that I’m going to get fired. I can’t shake it and it’s totally unfounded. I’ve never had a single bit of negative feedback about my work here. I get high fives, even been told I “pulled a rabbit out of a hat” on a last-minute presentation, but yet a couple of bad dreams and I’m forming conspiracy theories. This is not good.
I’d like to go back to dreaming about featherbeds I’ll never own, or catching some weird larva skin disease from one of my girlfriends (yeah, that one was freaky). At least with those, I don’t feel compelled to polish up my resume.
I have those room dreams too. i always figured it was because of new york apartment space issues.
I was going to say exactly what Li said. We all dream about things we don’t have, but don’t know necessarily how to deal with. For instance you with your job, and the prospect of losing it. Or me, without a job and the prospect of getting one. Or having too much space in one’s apartment and having to hire “help” to clean up after one. Or getting married in Vegas to a backup dancer who’s having a baby with his other baby’s mama. Insanely scary things.
At the risk of sounding insensitive, getting fired really isn’t that big of a deal. I like to think it just points out problems with the company’s HR department. I find that with jobs there are two stages. First, you feel like your in hopelessly over your head, and you struggle to make sure nobody finds out. You’re sure the scam will be up at any second, but in reality, there is no scam because you’re doing exactly what they expect from you. Stage two is where you become bitter because nobody appreciates your brilliance, and you too damn good for this place. You’ll hit stage two soon enough…
Have you ever dreamed about little girls stealing your long roads and booty of ore? Beware.
C, you shouldn’t speak of such evil things.
No, C. But in my dreams, a v. handsome man whispers sweet nothings. “Wood, clay, wheat or sheep, my dear?”
If he were a real dream man, he would offer you three ore and two wheat.
i always have *the* worst dreams when things are going well — it’s like my brain can’t accept that things are (for once!) easy and *needs* to create some kind of inner panic.
i think i’m addicted to that particular kind of adrenaline.
yaz
okay, the part about the rooms – that is beautiful. i’m guessing it’s always late afternoon, with the sunlight all glowy and yellow coming in through the windows.
and the part about the skin larvae? horrible. and i can almost assure you it will show up in a nightmare of my own, now.
I’ve been having fairly odd and very realistic dreams lately. Monday I dreamed I owned to chimpanzees, and that computers were alive and sprung arms and legs and were trying to catch me. This morning I dreamed about a fog that if inhaled turned me into fog as well.
It would be great if dreams had meanings, and if they did, if there was some concrete way of finding out exactly what they meant. What the heck do chimps in a dream mean?
I do know I dreamed about the killer fog because I was watching the Simpsons Halloween special and they showed killer fog that turned you inside out.
I’m with you on the undiscovered rooms in the house dreams. Mine are always bedrooms with fireplaces and built in book-nooks attached to palatial sized bathrooms with deep marble baths. I’m thinking this stems from the trauma I suffered for years from sharing a bathroom with my sisters. The phrase `discarded g-strings do NOT belong in the spa bath’ still haunts me….
I always have very vivid pregnant dreams. I feel the labor pains and then I’m holding and naming the baby and all.
The thing is I’m definitely not at risk for having a baby. When I try to explain to people in my dreams, “No! There is no father! You don’t get it! I’ve never had sex!” They’re all like, “Yeah, uh hum, sure, NICE TRY”
Fish and C, have you guys been playing D&D or something lately? That sounds like a RPG (and I don’t mean the Iraq kind) storyline.
Yaz: the first matrix failed because everything was happy and nice and human minds rejected it.
Thank you! I have also had that room dream many times, and I’ve never heard of anyone else having the same type. Anyone know what it’s supposed to symbolize?
I’ve had room dreams like that – it’s a little sad when you can’t get back to them. Do you find yourself looking for them in subsequent dreams, too?
I was interested to see what this common thread of dreaming of finding rooms meant, so according to dreammoods.com, “To dream that you find or discover new rooms, suggests that you are developing new strengths and taking on new roles. You may be growing emotionally.”
I don’t dream of pregnancy, though I guess it’s possible.
The last dream I remember had to do with ants. I’ll spare the details here, but see my comment in another blog if you’re curious and not easily grossed out.