I don*t have a lot of dreams anymore. When I was a kid I used to dream all the time. Including some nightmares of the “wake up all sweaty and terrified” variety. But since I got into double digit ages it really hasn*t happened that often. Occasionally I will be a little confused when I wake up and not be able to rememebr what day it is or somethign like that. But actual dreams are few and far between.
Which makes the ones I have that much stranger.
I went to bed early. Really early infact. 9 PM is damn near lunch time based ont he screwed up schedule I have managed to squeeze myself into. But I was able to fall asleep by 9:30 or so. Its 1:30 AM now and the damn dream woke me up.
Its a recurring dream. which is doubly weird since even when I was younger and dreamt pretty regularly, there were no repeat performances. But this one keeps coming back and it rattles me everytime. Some of the details change but the basic plot remains the same.
I am suddenly forced to pick up and leave everything I know and love because of a transgression in my distant past (don*t know what, but I get the impression its like I killed someone in self defense and then made the mistake of trying to cover it up). So off I go. First part of our story has me on foot with one other person, identity unknown but they are a good friend and accomplice. We spend the better part of a day and night hoofing it to a local railroad tracks and trying to jump a train. First few times I had the dream we end up getting caught right there by an overzealous lawman with avigilante complex (pretty sure its the guy from O* Brother Where Art Thou) and Bad Things ™ begin happening. At which point I wake up.
Tonight*s version featured me being a little smarter. Since I had been caught the last few times this happened (and I somehow remember that in the dream) I decide to spend a few extra days on foot and hike to an abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere to hide out for a bit. After a few days of not eating, that gets old and we walk to visit some relatives who generously give us a couple of motorcycles and some supplies. My friend and I set off like Fonda and Hopper in Easy Rider to make a vagabond tour of the U.S. doing good deeds or some nonsense (aren*t dreams wonderfully vauge?) while we avaoid the man with the posse and hangmans noose.
Funny thing is, this time what woke me up in terrified sweats was the fact that I would never see the kids or Donna again. Just snapped wide awake at 1 AM convinced that I had forsaken them to save my own ass and was going to have to live with that.
Don*t know what it means. I can guess, but dream interpretation is about on the level of fortune cookies for me. I have been a raging asshole to everyone in the house this week for reasons I can*t pin down and I*m sure there is some meaningful parallel in my dream. But if the damn thing isn*t going to offer up a solution, I would really prefer that it not wake me up in the middle of the night since I*m pretty sure that its the sleep deprivation thats causing me to be a prick.
What does it all mean? Hell if I know. I just wanted to write it down somewhere. Maybe I*ll figure it out later.
