I wasn't totally non-journalistic this past year. Right when I quit this I started a "dream journal" the very next day. I did manage to keep that up through the summer (with some off weeks when I took a road trip and it was hard to copy down what I dreamed. I was going to title the journal "Summer Nights' Dreams" but was worried someone else would see it and think that title was gay (not withstanding the concept of a dream journal itself would be gay).
For what it's worth, last night I dreamed that it was the afternoon wrestling match in high school. I went to weigh in, and was twelve pounds overweight for the class which the coach wanted me to be. I told him it was impossible to lose twelve pounds in four hours (or I'd most certainly lose the match even if I could lose the weight, given how much that would take out of me!)....with my pleas he just sort of kept starting back on me, his unblinking eyes saying "TF". I went back to my locker with plans to go into the humid pool room, or at least turn the showers on. I suddenly was in my underwear in front of my locker (at least this wasn't a dream where I was naked in public...oh I've had those...). Teammates Andrew and Pete were teasing me for wearing briefs, saying "why are you wearing 'tightie-whities'?"...I yelled back that the much more socially-acceptable boxers got bunched up under my singlet. I wouldn't really know that, it was just my excuse...I always wore briefs in high school.
I remember high school as being some of my favorite years yet there seems to be enough traumatic material subconsciously stored in my brain to provide sufficient material for anxiety-related dreams to haunt me almost a decade after I graduated...one reason I kept the journal was to confirm what I already knew: I have this reoccurring dream in some variation where I show up to a band competition (or am going to fill-in or something at finals in the present day) but as we are about to start the show, either in practice or competition, I don't know the music (fakeable/cover up-able) or where to go (not fakeable/cover up-able)...so I'm running around following everyone, always a beat behind and clueless on where the form is going next.
The biggest surprise to come out of the journal was a reoccurring setting in my dreams: it was always the night before a big snowstorm was predicted to role in. During my New England childhood, snow days were the biggest theme of the winter after Christmas, and the night before was always full of uncertainty...will it snow enough to cancel school? Will that stupid plow come and clear the streets in enough time? Should I do my homework? Apparently all these anxiety-related feelings implanted themselves upon my psyche. Friends in Florida didn't have snow days, but sometimes had "hurricane days"...I wonder if they dream about the night before a hurricane is supposed to role in?
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