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.