perchance to dream
All my life, I‛ve had vivid dreams. Every night. Always in color. And usually with good recall - there are some dreams I had as a child that I still remember now. Somewhere in my teenage years, I developed into a lucid dreamer. There have been points in my life when the dreams were so consistently interesting that I made a point of sleeping 10 hours a night just to see what would happen in them. (Yes, I‛m aware of how odd that seems.)
One of the more interesting things that‛s happened in the past ten years is the gradual unfolding of a coherent city, one sort of like Little Rock but very much not. I can remember the whole grid when I‛m awake, the buildings (some of which have undergone renovation), the people I met in different sections, things that happened in particular parts years ago. Blocks have been razed and rebuilt, and some are condemned but the residents are in litigation with the city government. The city has grown and changed around me, but I am always in my early 20‛s when I‛m there. I also don‛t drive there, but walk or often run. When I‛m running, I‛m very fast and very good, and aware of how much I‛m enjoying it*.
So I‛m accustomed to my dreams, even invested in them. They‛ve always been something I can count on. This semester has been rather alarming, then. During the first two weeks, I had the most stereotypical stress dreams I‛ve ever had. Teeth falling out, that sort of thing. And then I quit dreaming completely, which has never happened to me before. No dreams for weeks and weeks, until the week before last. Then it was only a flicker here and there. I woke up knowing I had dreamed, but not remembering what.
Now that I‛m in the throes of writing final essays, I would expect to either return to the previous stress dreams or to none at all. Instead, my dreams are actually dealing with the stress for me. The other night, I sat on a beach watching the sunset and then watching the night, listening to the waves for hours. I was entirely alone, and thinking gently and coherently about one of my research areas and about nothing at all. Last night, I drove through a rainy drippy Ozark valley in an open motorized carriage, along a lane with overhanging trees. The water had washed the air and left sparkling beads on every surface. There was that particular wind that comes to Arkansas in late March. I woke up completely happy and refreshed.
So apparently I'm stressed enough to need to Go To My Special Place, like a bad Saturday Night Live skit. This is not something that‛s happened before. Still, I‛m so thrilled to be dreaming again. And curious about what will happen next.
* This last bit is comical to those who know me, because the last time I ran anywhere was in 7th grade PE. There's a Howlin‛ Wolf line that applies to me: "I was built for comfort, baby. I ain‛t built for speed."