The Ramblings of Our Subconscious Minds

My brother once told me of a friend who had a most eerie pursuit dream...

Chasing dreams (where the dreamer struggles to escape from a persistent foe) are nothing out of the ordinary. That said, I'm not convinced my chase dreams are, in fact, typical. Usually I'm being pursued in the mall and try as I might to fly through the skylight or automatic doors, I fail to find an exit. In another familiar sequence, I'm doing quite well outside a different mall entirely--until I encounter the electrical wires. Frantically, I flap my arms as I try to decide whether to cross over or under. These pesky electrical wires have ruined many a fine flight.

However, as my brother Brent told me with a mixture of awe and trepidation, his friend had a dream that occurred once every year, one that continued wherever it left off. Every year a new, brief episode. Every year a new cliff hanger. Every year the same series of uneasy questions: What is the significance of this dream? How is it possible that a dream sequence could unwind bit by bit? And what, pray tell, happens when I reach the end? Is it . . . gulp . . . the end?

Who knows what our minds are capable of. On one occasion, I found myself (in a dream) at the back door of my parents' house. Something was amiss; I was nearly knocked over with a sense of loss that permeated the darkness around me. Then my father came to me in a transparent form and said, "Your mother and I were just in a terrible car accident. I wanted to tell you and to say good bye."

I woke up with a sense of dread. My parents were traveling at the time, and I hoped this was not a premonition. But I shook off the uncomfortable feelings and went about my daily life routine. When I spoke with my father a day or two later, he casually mentioned how close he and my mother had come to being involved in a head-on highway collision.

I kind of knew that already, I thought. But I am not going to ponder this matter...no thank you.

While we're on the subject of dreams, one dream pattern I have is more irritating than eerie. Deep in sleep, I come to the awareness that I am, in fact, dreaming. It's a little like being caught in that catchy Queensryche tune (the "heavy metal" 90s band that ripped off Pink Floyd). This dream, however, is going nowhere fast: I can feel a nightmare approaching. So I decide to break free, to go through the struggle of propelling myself out of REM sleep and back into the safer confines of my bedroom. The process feels much like being a swimmer struggling to reach the surface. Unfortunately, though I am conscious that I am dreaming, I am unable grasp that the characters in my dream are not real and not in mortal danger. Their existence--if it can be called that--is dependent on my mind. And yet I apologize to them profusely, begging them to forgive me for abandoning them, for waking up when that option is unavailable to them.

Good grief, the stress.

Perhaps the worst dreams of all involve excessive housework. I will sometimes waste a perfectly good dream canvas by spending my time cleaning the brushes rather than actually painting. In other words, I'll have a lengthy dream in which I clean the house, or go through the mundane routines of self care needed to get ready for the day. Many times I will pack a suitcase to nowhere, ensuring that the correct items are tucked away. And then I wake up . . . and realize that I have not, in fact, packed, or cleaned, or showered. Then I go through the process a second time, feeling thoroughly cheated.

But alas, who is to blame? I can't really point a finger at my own subconscious mind, can I?

[Feel free, dear reader, to share your quirkier dream experiences.]