It’s depressing when it’s all a dream

I’m mildly stressed right now, trying to get a company-wide team open house off the ground. My own fault for pushing such an event, really.

In my dream, we’re having the event, and people are actually moving from station to station, learning what others in the company do. It’s not a roaring success, but I’m feeling immense relief that it’s a pretty darn good event.

I then wake up. And realize that I still have to do all the work to create that event, and that it hasn’t happened yet. Sigh.

Dreams that mirror current real-world conditions

I love dreams where they are actually reflections of what’s happening in reality. Here’s a quick one I had the other night:

In my dream, I was utterly freezing. Shaking, shivering, etc. I started to make some hot chocolate to warm me up.

I then woke up, and the fan was blasting cool air at me, and my blanket was off of me. It was really cold in the room, even in August. So I turned off the fan, and went back to sleep.

I love thinking I’m witty in my dreams

Nothing like a dream where you think highly of yourself to raise your self-esteem, even if you’re not being as funny or clever as you think you are.

I was working on a science project, and told everyone that it was investigating a ‘Soldier of Fortune’ when it was really investigating Newton’s Second Law of Motion. [see, they rhyme, see? That's frickin' brilliant, right? I thought so in my dreams. Ha.]

Disappointment when Dream is Not a Reality

I absolutely love dreams that are your dreams. Ones where you are happy, or thrilled, or having a wonderful time, or doing something that you’ve long thought about but hadn’t had the courage for.

In my dream last night, we went shopping for kayaks, even though we really shouldnt get them (for money reasons). We picked up all the kayaking gear, and then started listing the various lakes nearby that we wanted to try out. I started to imagine the fun weekends we were about to embark on.

Alas, I then woke up. It took me a few minutes to realize that I did not, in fact, own a kayak now. Sigh.

To bark or not to bark

I am a cat person. But only a highly affectionate cat person, which describes my two critters. They want endless affection, curl up on my lap whenever they can, and purr nonstop. Dan, on the other hand, is a dog person. We have a mixed marriage. At his urging, we now have a pup, Cebo, a springer spaniel. He’s highly energetic, but is overall a very nice critter. And it’s nice not having a pet I’m allergic to. Outwardly I’m indulgent, inwardly I think he’s pretty darn nice.

In my dream, Cebo belongs to a family with kids. I’m temporarily taking care of him, yanking his leash so he doesnt jump on everyone. I try to be very nonchalant as I walk up to the family, so that they’ll forget I’m around and simply walk away with both me and the pup, so I don’t have to give him up.

Promotion via Dreams?

Dan just launched a website he’s been working on – www.pictonomy.com
It’s a pretty cool site, that lets you ask questions using pictures instead of words. So if you don’t know what kind of bird you just saw, or car, or see a cool shirt and wonder where you could find another like that, you simply take a picture and ask the community about it. I’ve just begun mentioning the site to friends and family, and trying to entice them to add content to the site before it gets more widespread.

In the dream, I’m riding in a car to a work event with colleagues. They’re chatting about something work-related, and I’m zoning out (as per usual) until they mention websites. At this point, I perk up, interrupt, and say that Dan has just launched a new site. As I begin to describe it, I look over and see my colleague rolling her eyes. I chuckle, realizing I may be a little too pushy in my promotion of my friends’ ideas. (Always good to wait until that night, when you’re asleep, to learn some social skills. Just a little too late, perhaps).

Being other people

Lots of miscellaneous images in my dreams last night. The only coherence was one dream where I was Olivia Newton John, in Grease, looking forward to seeing how thin I looked while dancing. Weird. But whatever.

I’ve had a lot of dreams where I’ve been other people — men, women, movie stars, strangers. When I was young, I thought this meant that I had a weak self-image. I’m not so sure. I think I’m highly empathetic, as well as having grown up as a voracious reader and TV watcher. Perhaps my exposure to watching and faux-engaging with fake individuals has made me prone to being them in dreams. My favorite was being Lionel Richie, singing ‘Hello,’ btw.

Plumbing Disasters

Not much to remark on my dreams last night — lots of random images, playing cards with family, interacting with coworkers, being imprisoned and having to escape down a cliff. But one of the dreams involved sitting with my mother, downstairs (in a home that I dont recognize but was my parents’ home in the dream). I looked up, and saw a huge wet area in the ceiling, that was rapidly starting to drip. I raced upstairs, and we frantically tried to fix the toilet, which was spurting water out from a pipe on the floor.

This dream is clearly me thinking about having to fix my bathroom. We had a bad leak, under the wood floors (note to self: hardwood in bathrooms is really dumb). We removed half the flooring, and I think we fixed the broken seal on the toilet (thank you Readers Digest Home Repair). We’ve now had fans blowing for a week, to dry off everything. My worry now is how to replace the hardwood with vinyl flooring, which theoretically should be cheap and self-service. I hadnt thought about it consciously in a few days (the bathroom door is closed, and out of sight, out of mind). But apparently it’s still on my subconscious to-do list, which is good, since we need to fix it. I like doing home repairs ourselves, since I’m cheap, but I’d much rather be having fun. So much for the weekend. Sigh.

Problem-solving dreams

I’ve now had the experience, multiple times, of having dreams that solve problems I’ve worried about while awake. Last night’s wasn’t particularly thrilling — I remembered a workflow visualization style that I had used in a previous job, which I had forgotten about. But other dreams have given product ideas, design insights, etc.

This has only happened as an adult for me — maybe my memory/brain power is a little weaker, and dreams enable access to ideas inaccessible while conscious? OK, that doesnt make much sense. But I hope I can have more dreams like this!

A second dog

I am at work, and they announce my name for winning a contest. I never win contests. I get a Lexus car and a fancy breed dog that can be resold for a 5K profit. I go meet the dog, who is absolutely enormous, black, and beautiful. But not particularly friendly, which is good since I want to sell him for the cash. I’m hoping I dont get so attached that I can’t sell him, since we need the money.

Explanation: I have a dog. I’m not a dog person. He’s a sweetie, but it’s all because of Dan. I worry that I can’t bring myself to totally love him, so maybe I worry about being torn between love and wanting to give him up?