askyermom

I dreamed an exceptionally handsome man was trying to seduce me in a highly unrealistic work setting. It became clear during all that nuzzling, what he really wanted was to persuade me to set up his wifi. Of course this is ridiculous. No one would beg me to do their tech support, much less nuzzle me for it.

This got me to thinking about dreams in a more general way. Making sense of them is usually beside the point. I mean, it’s a fun puzzle, and I enjoy speculating on other peoples’ dream imagery, but it seems to me that it is too easy to get tangled up in the imaginary weeds and get into premature trouble when you dig too deeply. No one has even asked me for a wifi password lately, so this particular dream puzzle remains unsolved.

Normally, the available message is in the nonsense and in the emotional temperature of the dream. We can get what we need from paddling around in the shallows. Personally, I believe that when we have bizarre dreams that seem to have no bearing, all we need to do is move along and wait for the next dream. Eventually the message will become easy to read. You don’t have to solve a crime if you don’t feel like it. Also, starfish don’t have ear lobes and that is simply not your problem.

As a child I had recurring nightmares about being chased by a man in black. I’m going to belatedly speculate that those dreams were about the fear of death, which seems sort of cute now. My concept of death was a salesman in a dark trench coat and fedora–spooky and yet ordinary.

Later nightmares involved trying to escape from a maze-like old house while carrying too many small personal items, like a clutch of perfume bottles and lotions. The anxiety of urgently climbing down a ladder with handfuls of ointments is surprisingly durable. I’ve never had to do it in real life, but should the occasion arise, I’m sure I would freeze and ruin everything. A therapist suggested the dream was about my worry and the need to get my shit together. My unconscious was elegant as ever.

As a grown mom, my nightmares involved being a passenger in an uncontrolled car. Each time, the driver was my partner, speeding around curves, recklessly zooming past pedestrians and obstacles and ignoring my advice. The dreams became so vivid and frightening that I would wake up genuinely angry.

The anger was the messenger. In waking life, I had become passive in the extreme and allowed my partner to set all the parameters of our life. It simply had become too costly to express myself and oppose anything they wanted. This did not sit peacefully with my personality. As ever, I was full of ideas and improvements and quite miserable to be given no consideration.

The idea that one should “pick your battles” meant that I was picking very few battles.

When you are wrangling with someone who will threaten mayhem over imperfect snacks, you know you are either dealing with a highly dysfunctional adult or you are dealing with a toddler. The difference is that there is a very good chance the toddler will grow out of it.

These driving dreams are the ones I think of when people claim all dreams are nonsense. I don’t remember what versions of the dream came before they became stuck in the groove of stubborn reckless driving. The way that scene echoed night after night became a lighthouse beacon with distinct flashes.

You are not in control.

You are trapped in danger.

No one is going to save you.

That last one is alarming and not entirely true. Dreams saved my life and people did assist me. The lonely truth: no one else was going to make the decision to move toward safety, to take control, to take the wheel. I had to make that call.

Faith was a sort of inflatable slide for my evacuation, but I had to be the one to make the decision to go, to believe I had the capacity to restart my life one more time. With God’s help and the impeccably timed help of some of my favorite humans, I navigated to a new safety.

Having the imagination to see a different future–or even just the clarity to recognize the current situation is not right–is very powerful information. Whether your dreams are from sleeping or waking, they just might be the next clue you need to free yourself from fear.

But, you know, sometimes a starfish is just a starfish.

Love,
yermom

If you want to, you can buy my book, Don’t Eat Your Children!! Word is that it is on Hoopla, although I can’t tell because my library doesn’t use the Hoopla book section. Let me know if you can borrow it!! In those situations it should be FREE, because libraries are great!!