Dreams can be incredibly strange. Since I don’t have Sigmund Freud around to help me analyze a few of them, I guess I’m on my own.
As a child, I had a recurring dream about a monster that lived in the television set. It only seemed to appear when the set was turned off. I think my brother tried to humor me by agreeing that he had a similar dream…although he could have just been messing with my head, trying to make me believe that everyone had that dream.
As an adult, I don’t have any specific recurring nightmares, although I usually have central thematic material to work with.
The biggest one?
I’m running terribly late for something and no matter what I do, I never quite make it where I’m supposed to be. Oddly, I’m never late for anything in the “awake” world.
In college, the dream usually jolted me out of my evening slumber during finals week. I would wake up–heart pounding–and check the clock obsessively. They usually ended with me desperately trying to run to an exam I couldn’t find because I had trouble interpreting the finals grid the university sent out about a week before testing.
My stress level had gone through the roof one semester. I was working long hours on a research project. One Sunday afternoon, I drifted off with a pile of books within my reach. (Although this little anecdote isn’t about a dream, it does demonstrate how your mind can play tricks on you.) I woke up and panicked when the clock said it was 2:30. In my mental fog, I thought I had slept straight through that afternoon and the next one, missing my class altogether.
(Oh, it gets better.)
I freaked out even further when I realized that I hadn’t pulled a Rip Van Winkle…but that sleeping until 2:30 a.m. was within the realm of possibility. So why was the sun out at 2:30 a.m.? Yep, only a few parts of my brain had woken up, and not in any kind of sequential order. Once I realized it was 2:30 p.m. on the same afternoon in which I had fallen asleep, I calmed down and kept sifting through the books.
(I got a 4.0 that semester. I think it was worth it.)
Last night’s dream, however, takes the cake on “weird.” The central theme remained the same: I’m running late for something and I won’t make it on time no matter how hard I try.
This time, it was a concert.
Oh, and I was trying to find the performance venue on a continent upon which I’ve never set foot. (I figured this one out by my “dream-style” logic reasoning skills.)
Oh, and I was trying to chase down one of the performers who was supposed to stay right by my side for some reason.
I knew I was in a race against the clock. I was on a train but I had no idea how I ended up on the train. All I knew was that it was supposed to take me where I needed to go. It was dark outside, but I could make out the outlines of trees against the moonlight. They were types of trees I’d never seen in person, so that was my “dream-style” reasoning clue that I was in foreign territory.
Now, when you know you’re running terribly late for something, the last thing you need to do is stop for a leisurely lunch. In my “dream-style” mode of thinking, however, I did just that. I found myself in a nice little cafe. My companion hadn’t materialized yet, so I was alone…but then I noticed the celebrity couple seated at the table behind me.
I have no idea why these two were anywhere in the same ZIP and/or area code of my mind, but when you see The Crocodile Hunter and his wife eating lunch six feet away, you get a little curious. (Especially considering one pretty big detail that would negate the possibility of this little outing ever occurring in 2016.) Never mind that I was running late…I had to say hello and gush a little bit about how wonderful their daughter was on “Dancing With The Stars” and whatnot. (I really think they just wanted to be left alone, because they said they wanted to be left alone. I should have known that, even with this being a dream and all.)
It was only then that I realized just how late I was running and that I had to be somewhere…I just didn’t know where. I ended up back on the train again, but it was daylight. Somehow, I ended up off the train shortly thereafter, and I was on foot running through muddy fields and gravel parking lots while trying to keep up with the companion that had finally materialized.
I woke up when I found myself trapped in a small room in a nuclear power plant. I guess my companion made it to the concert. (Way to go.) I’m curious as to how it went. And what we were supposed to be playing. And–oh, yeah–where it actually was.
Why can a dream leave you with such specific details as a slightly tense conversation with a departed wildlife expert but NOT let you know where you were supposed to be going by a certain unspecified time? I mean, I couldn’t really find anything about any of these scenarios in my ten-dollar dream dictionary, so it must be an unsolvable mystery for the ages. The only part of it that makes any sense is “concert,” because I just finished with one last week.
If I ever have that dream again about running late for finals, though, I may have to see if I can get Dr. Freud to materialize.