Monday, September 21, 2009

What Dreams May Come

I should be doing MANY other things right now, but I thought I'd post this little bit to get it out of my head. The night before last, C woke up around 3 am and was talking in his bed. (He often wakes up at 5:30 am and is awake for the day, but 3 am was a little early.) I couldn't tell what he was saying in the monitor, so I went into his room to ask what was wrong. He said, "Did we flush my green tanker truck down the toilet?" That was it--bad dream. He's had bad dreams before, but never really had enough language to actually describe it. I assured him it was fine and we should go back to bed. He said he needed to go to the bathroom, so I took him in, and he repeatedly questioned me about the tanker truck, and was I the one who flushed him down the toilet. I tried to assure him his truck was still there and explain exactly what a dream was. He got quieter and went back to sleep, but never really seemed satisfied.
Later that day when we were at church, C leans over to me and whispers, "Are we not going to flush our trucks down the church potty?" While I tried really hard not to laugh, I told him we had no trucks with us and that I would never do that.
After sacrament meeting, I took him to the bathroom. While sitting on the toilet, he points to an almost-gone zit on my face and says, "Is that your owwie?" I said it was but it was almost gone. And he said,"Did you get that when you flushed my trucks down the toilet?" Poor boy. Usually I am slightly annoyed when he points out my occasional zits, but this time I just couldn't help but empathize.
Unfortunately, as adults, we are not immune to bad dreams. I was reading a magazine article about dreams the other day, and they perfectly described my reoccurring adult nightmare--I realize I am late for a final exam for a class I signed up for but forgot to ever attend. I did feel a little relieved that I am not alone in dreaming this because as far as adult nightmares go, this is apparently very popular.
The magazine says this indicates that I am a person to whom achievement is important and I have anxiety in my life....well, duh. I think any woman at my life stage is entitled to a bit of anxiety. After all, it certainly is possible that my son really flushed a toy down the toilet and it wasn't a bad dream at all and I think a little bit of anxiety about that is perfectly normal. But I do also believe our dreams reveal a little about us that we may not have known.
Adam sometimes teases me about all the crazy dreams I have, but sometimes I wonder just what it's all for. One day, I was painting a bookcase white, and I was standing over it moving the paintbrush up and down, and I realized I that had seen this exact picture before. But it was more than dejavu--I remembered where I had seen it before...it was in a dream I had weeks earlier before I ever decided to paint it.
Now please don't think I have any belief in psychic abilities because you won't convince me that painting a bookcase had any significance to anyone--even me. But I do know there are all kinds of things about our brains that science doesn't yet understand. It truly fascinates me, and sometimes I wonder if in another life I might be a neuroscientist and figure it all out.
Maybe I'll dream about that tonight.

4 comments:

The Welborn Family said...

Awwww! Kai had his first bad dream about Bigfoot and was scared to go to sleep the next two nights. It was really hard to explain to him what a dream was. He asked,"Why would my brain do that?" Ha ha! You are just lucky you dream about being late for an exam. Mine are much, much worse usually involving shot-guns and protecting children. Yikes! Wonder what that says about me! Ha ha!

Traci said...

What a sad dreams! Haha, but that is interesting... I used to have dreams that I would go to church in a towel... and not be able to leave... I feel your pain :)

Davis and Carter's Mommy said...

I totally have the exam for a class I never attended dream--good to know its interpretation. I always really freak out, maybe I was just in school toooo long. The boys do have serious nightmares though, Davis's last one was Carter died in a fire. Freaky.

Rich and Liz Harris said...

such a cool post!