Dream a little dream

One of my coworkers and I often share the things we dream about, especially when they are oddly work related. He has dreamt he had two mountain lines perching on his chest. "It was uncomfortable, but not unbearable," he said. I suggested perhaps his two part-time jobs were weighing down on him.

Most of the time, however, our dreams are a lot more obvious. We both work at a newspaper, which is a deadline driven business so maybe it's not unusual that we both have the same recurring dream. In mine, I am back at school, most often at Gilroy High School, and I suddenly realize that I have missed a class all semester and I have a final or major project coming due. The class is almost always a math class, but once in awhile it is a photography class. The dream just kind of goes around in circles with me thinking I need to get the project/final done, but not really doing anything to get it done. A lot of times in my dream I am semi-aware that I am dreaming.


My coworker has the same dream, and yes, his missed class is often math (we are both not very good with numbers.) He said he doesn't think he stresses about deadlines, but maybe he does subconsciously.

Dreams are a weird thing and that was reiterated by an article on nightmares I read in a November issue of the "New Yorker." According to the article, 20 percent of people have lucid dreams, where they are aware that they are dreaming and have some control over their dreams. And through the years people report differently whether they dream in color or black and white. One expert in the article said dreams are probably more like sketches, and when we wake up our brains fill in all the dimension and color details. My own dreams seem to be in color, and sometimes they are lucid - at least I think they are.


The article was interesting because some of the researchers who are treating people who suffer from extreme nightmares are not trying to figure out what triggers them or what might be the root cause - instead they are trying to teach people how to control what they dream about. They have the patients practice visualizing dream scenarios in the day where they change the scary or disturbing elements into more benign imagery. They are having some success.


I can understand that happening since I will often have dreams that are seem to relate to something I watched or read before bed. A few weeks ago, I watched a video of a friend's baby on Facebook before going to bed. That night I dreamt about babysitting him and that he wouldn't stop crying. I couldn't wait for his dad to pick him up. And a few months ago when I chatted with a guy I sort of have a crush on before bed, I dreamt about him that night. The dream basically clarified that I was unsure if he reciprocated the feelings.

When I reconnected with someone I knew in college while I studied in Ireland, I dreamt about him. I tried to get him to eat jelly bellies and let me borrow his car to drive around Ireland. I don't really get the jelly bellies, but maybe borrowing his car just has to do with my desire to take a vacation in Ireland someday.

I try not to analyze my dreams too much, but it is funny to swap stories about the most odd ones with my friends and coworker. And lucky for me, the nightmares are few and far between lately.

My dreams are keeping me up at night

This week has been a rough one for me, and unfortunately I haven't even been able to escape into a good night's sleep. I've been sleeping just fine, but my nights have been full of very vivid and disturbing dreams. It seems as if my stress during the day finds a way to manifest itself at night.

I've always had very vivid dreams and have been pretty good at remembering them. Whatever is going on in my life is usually what makes it into my dreams - my friends and family make a lot of appearances as does work-related stuff. I usually know I am developing a serious crush when a guy I know shows up in my dreams. But some weeks the dreams just seem to come out of nowhere.

One night this week I dreamt that I argued with the owner of my company, a man with whom I speak probably just a few times a year. Most of the other details have faded, but it was an argument about a membership renewal not being paid.

The next night I dreamt about vampires, perhaps because I had watched an episode of "Vampire Diaries" right before bed. The dream incorporated some of the ideas from the show, and in it someone was trying to get me to let a snake bite me because then if a vampire bit me they would get poisoned and would leave me alone. I woke up in the middle of the night scared until I realized it wasn't real, and then I thought if I could only remember all the details it might make a good screenplay some day. And then I went back to sleep and dreamt some more about vampires.

The night after my brain incorporated characters from "Dexter" and the guest star from the last "Law and Order: SVU." I wasn't involved in this dream, but was watching it like a movie. Dexter, Astor and someone else were driving all around trying to track down Stephen Rea (who played the guest role on SVU) so that Dexter could murder the bad guy. There was even some elaborate scheme set up at Rea's hotel for Dexter to get him. I woke up again feeling on edge.

I got one night's reprieve before I dreamt about going down to the U2 concert at the Rose Bowl (which I will be doing Oct. 25) and not being able to get to the concert because we didn't have our shuttle bus tickets. The dream was full of waiting in line and struggling to get to the venue. And for some weird reason, the shuttle stop was in an amusement park, and was like an amusement park train instead of a real bus. We had yet made it to the concert when I woke up. Luckily our shuttle tickets came in the mail today, our reservations for the hotel are set and I've got the U2 tickets put away for the day of the concert.

After nights like these, I often wake up feeling almost as tired as I did when I went to bed. But, of course, the worst nights are the ones when I dream about work. There are nights when I dream about designing pages and missing deadlines. I guess the worst dreams, however, are the ones where I dream that I have already gotten up and gotten ready for work, and then wake up to find I haven't done any of that.

I'm not really sure what to do to eliminate these dreams. I could stop watching so much TV, I guess, but I think these dreams are probably coming more from a stressful few weeks at work. I can only hope that tonight when I go to bed my dreams will be normal again, or better yet, maybe I won't even remember them.