You can tell by the hair that I wake up with that I have a pretty active dream life. In fact, I have vivid dreams almost every night. And on those days that I wake up naturally (i.e. without an alarm jolting my from my dreams) I can usually remember them for at least a short while.
I have recurring dreams about bridges; about Niagara Falls; about bridges over Niagara Falls; and about bridges over a city (which would be an awesome way to avoid traffic).
Not too long ago I was a passenger in my friend Christine’s car (hi Christine!) and we were in Buffalo on a bridge that was over part of the city. I felt like I was reliving one of my recurring dreams and couldn’t stop talking about it. (I may have freaked her out a bit, too…sorry Christine!)
Recently I’ve had some strange dreams.
I never understand how dreams can replace actual places with other places, but your brain still thinks it’s the original place.
For example, I had a dream recently where I was at a honky-tonk cafe – only in my dream it was part of my alma mater. And it made perfect sense in the dream. And as I was seeing people I knew from college, over the loud speaker came that voice (you know the one – you’ve heard in so many commercial voice-overs) that said “In a world where Michael Bolton wants to be a tiny horse…” And just then a Barbie Doll-sized horse (tie-dyed) came running up to me to be petted…only it was a centaur with Michael Bolton’s head and torso.
Might have been the spicy food I ate for dinner?
Last night I dreamed that I got engaged to a person I knew back in high school (not anyone I had ever dated, or knew well even). It was a beautiful ring with channel sapphires and a huge diamond. And I couldn’t stop grinning about how happy I was.
And then suddenly I was in an ice road truck (like on TV) trying to deliver a scarf to Michelle Obama for her birthday.
(Hmmm…Mexican food last night…)
On several occasions in my dreams my grandmother (gone since 1988) comes to visit me. We sit quietly together holding hands. I can actually feel the softness of her hands in my dreams. Sometimes we chat. Mostly we sit in silence – companions just sharing some time together. I love those dreams because I get to see her again. I hate them because I wake up missing her.
The earliest dream I remember was when I was 5 years old and we lived in Missouri. My bedroom had a folding door that opened onto a “balcony” that overlooked the staircase to the second floor. Well, one night I dreamed that I opened that door to see GIANT (as in, taller than I was) daddy-long-legs spiders walking up the stairs with glass helmets on their heads like they had just arrived from outer space. That dream scared me so much that I still remember it distinctly even 4o years later.
Although I have never taken the time to research what any of my dreams might have meant, I still come away with a general feeling of having learned something, seen something, or been enriched in some way from every one.
Even the tiny Michael Bolton horse.
Your bedheaded blogger,
Michelle