Dream a Little Dream of Me

My idiosyncracies seem to be multiplying.  I have always had anxiety dreams.  When I was expecting Richard, I dreamed I went into labour, and gave birth to a cat.  I am not sure to where my mind had taken a detour, but the fear of the unknown had obviously taken its toll on my nervous system.

No matter how hard I try to convince myself, a concern will manifest itself during my sleeping hours.  I am sure I am not alone in having anxiety dreams, but I do get some funny looks when relaying my night-time visions.

I have learned that worrying over things that are hypothetical is rather useless, however, my sub conscience seems to be on a totally different wave length to the rest of me.  If I hear of something, that possibly has a less than one in a million chance of affecting my life, I will dismiss it until the percentage likelihood increases.  My sub conscience, has a different perspective, and at this time, takes a vacation.  It takes on board the information, skips out to have one last fling before its self-proclaimed Armageddon, and comes back in with the worry magnified beyond normal ratios.  It sits in silence, until lights out, and then screams at the top of it's voice.

This last week has been somewhat of a fiesta for my subliminal gene. Samantha and Edward took a road trip to Las Vegas last weekend.  They left (later than anticipated) on Saturday, and drove through the night, arriving in Nevada a little after nine, Texas Time, the following evening.  I am not sure whether it was fortunate that I did not sleep on Saturday night, awaiting hourly reports, but my sub conscience did not have a chance to go into hysteria.  However, their return journey was much longer, and a girl has to sleep at sometime, over a 72 hour period.  They left Vegas Friday (later than I anticipated) and made a stop, for a few hours, to get some sleep.  They were taking a detour to Four Corners (where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet) which meant they would be arriving back in Austin later than I had expected.  Samantha informed me at 6pm, Saturday night, that she was 13 hours away from Austin.  Arriving home at 7am Sunday morning, would require my rising at a earlier hour to walk the dog, and be there to open the door, as she did not have her keys.  Walking the dog was a necessity.  Although he was house trained very early on, he has a tendency to get 'over excited', and on occasion has been known to leave a little puddle to prove it.  When Samantha's cousin Vicky came to stay, he 'proved it' most mornings, and with my extensive amount of clean bed linen diminishing rapidly, the washing machine proved to be my best friend! 

During the week, my sub conscience had taken a trip, digested an inordinate amount of whimsical fantasy, used a vast amount of literary license to enhance, and on its return, had decided that as I was concerned about one of my children, the other must have his fair share of concern.  I have always maintained that what I do for one, I shall do for the other.  Presumably the dysfunctional part of my brain, that appears to have an additional mind of its own, had taken this fact and, as usual, fretted without reason. I must have dozed between waking up, and actually getting up, on Saturday morning.  During this period, I had met Richard at an unfamiliar location.  He was wearing a brown suit, and was about four feet tall.  Looking down at his head, which I have not done since he was about ten, it suddenly became clear that something was not right. I asked, 'were you not taller than me?'  He nodded and then disappeared.  I became very worried and decided to consult (yes this was a dream) a loaf of bread.  What had happened to him? Why was he shrinking?  Was he on drugs?  The loaf did not answer. (Surprise, surprise!)  Not deterred by the absence of confirmation from a piece of bread, I continued, 'Is it Heroin, Cocaine?'  The loaf finally responded.  'No!' came a voice from what looked like a mouth in the dough.  As I awoke, my number one source of concern was not that I was seeking advice from bakery items, but where my sub-conscience had taken its holiday, and what items of negativity it had conjured up about my son taking drugs!  The television was not on, so there was no outside infiltration, so what was the deal?  I have yet to work out the connection, but I must have either hesitated in a reply, or had a thought, not necessarily of a pessimistic nature, or made a comment out of context, when I spoke to him, and 'Subby' went AWOL, as always.

Having woken up making a strange strangled moaning sound (it was a scream in my dream) at sometime during the week, and in a wild panic on another night, I knew I would have to deal with tantrums from the inner me.

After the episode of nightmarish quality on Saturday morning, when Saturday night approached, I longed for a reasonable night's sleep.  At 10:30 p.m., Samantha was still a long way from home, and still in New Mexico.  It seemed that she had been in New Mexico for an age.  I drifted off to sleep around 11:30pm and the inevitable happened.  Samantha and Edward were stuck inside the map, going round, and round in circles, unable to leave the 'Land of Enchantment'.  I woke up with a start, and sent her a message.  'Are you in Texas yet?'  The answer was 'No'.  I was faced with the dilemma of trying to stay awake, or going back into, what was bound to be, a dream filled sleep.  The majority of my brain is quite sensible, and it closed down, forcing me to snooze.  Back in the twilight zone, I wondered how I was going to remove them from the carousel, and set them on the road home, when I wasn't sure which one was the road home. 

Waking at 3am, I reached for my phone.  The words 'In Texas', were probably the most perfect double act I have ever seen.  Despite them being about seven hours away from home, I was confident my sub conscience would quite happily be tucked up in bed, dreaming strange dreams of its own, from this point forth, as it was, obviously, exhausted!

Most of the time I am fully aware that I am dreaming, when dreaming.  I have had the 'naked' dreams, where I find myself in the middle of a crowded place, and no one appears to notice that I do not have a stitch on!  Okay, so I am approaching 51, and the old 'bod' is, perhaps, not what it was, but I haven't always been this age.  Surely among the crowd is an octogenarian that could raise a smile. (Yes, a smile would suffice!)  I am sure there is an accepted clinical explanation, such as I am lacking in confidence.  Frankly, I don't need an encrypted slumber message to give me that information. 

With all the 'bad' news in the world, my sub conscience will no doubt rack up the air miles as it takes off in many different directions, and returns to blow all things out of proportion, and my hours of what should be restful slumber, will be haunted with an over diagnosed misrepresentation of the truth.

The Texas Legislature is in session for another two weeks, and bills are passing through to be signed by the Governor most days of the week, so we need to remain vigilant as to 'something bad slipping through'.  Once it is all over, the brain can relax, the sub conscience can take some real time off, and I can write.....another story.