Dream a little dream

I did not accomplish all that I planned, but I accomplished much of what I wanted today. Tomorrow I must be very focused and energetic to finish it all. But I have the time, before I go to bad, exhausted and surrendering in the struggle against the mosquito bites: I've put stuff on them (Campho Phenique), I've put bandages over that. Some I haven't managed to bandage (try putting bandages on YOUR scapulas!). I'm just giving in and feeling itchy. Because some things still itch, I'm not sure if the other stuff itches less, or even not at all. You know how that happens? The sensation simply swamps your receptors and there's no way to differentiate incoming signals.

Which, unexpectedly, leads me more or less to tonight's topic: dreams and PTSD.

When I dream, my PTSD hallucinations are real. So the bug-shapes I see out of the corner of my eye in real life are large black bugs that jump at me or pursue me or go where I cannot see them in my dreams. The pet-sized shadows I see are actual dogs and cats and who knows what in my dreams. And sometimes there are people, too. As you can see, my PTSD shapes are generally not beneficial in my dreams.

Except this morning. In my dream, I was getting into my car and struggling through black webs and spiders and tree roaches and just webby kinds of barriers. When I got into the driver's seat I jumped and brought my foot up to see what was on it and it was a skinny black lizard. It wasn't scary and I wanted to catch it, or at least leave it in the car to eat the pests.

So, Julie, Dream Interpreter Extraordinaire, tell me what the heck this means?

(Does this sooth your OCD cravings for my blog posts?)

Other People's Dreams

I had a therapist once, who was fairly "woo woo" (well, much more so that I was), who held the opinion that sometimes we encounter dreams that belong to someone else, as if the universal "over dream" occasionally slipped tracks. Every once in a while I have dreams that seem not to belong to me, which always reminds me of her and that conversation.

Last night I had such a dream. For some reason, I ended up near my old high school. There were other people in close proximity to me and we were looking for the street address of the school because we intended to mail something to the school. I felt as if I could almost remember it, but it was just out of reach. So I began to circle the school area, looking for street names.

All of the street signs were either obscured or they were very blurry; this happens to me sometimes in dreams, where I'll strain my dream-eyes attempting to read something that just won't come clear.

Some times I felt as if I were flying, sometimes as if I were driving a car, and always there were these presences behind me, who I conversed with but never saw, who kept up pressure on me to get this address.

Nothing about the area was familiar. Even if someone had razed the school and parking lots to the ground then rebuilt, this wouldn't have been the result. I went inside to ask someone the address.

I met an older woman (older than me, with steel gray fluffy-curly hair, sensible shoes, and all the rest of a particular stereotype). She was caring for a young boy and a puppy. She gave me the address and somehow we began a long conversation. During this time I had the puppy on my lap and had great, not always successful, battles keeping it from licking me all over the face. (I do not like dogs to lick me.) The woman commented about my not being able to even handle a puppy, to which I replied that I had never owned a dog.

Eventually, I was at my home (where I've never lived) with a car. There was another car, and out of it came a young man and woman, the little boy, and the older woman. They had a (different) puppy that for some reason I was going to foster. (IRL you couldn't pay me to foster a dog.) As we were all attempting to enter my home, I kept looking for the black cat I owned; I didn't want her to get outside while we were bringing puppy and people inside. The door would get left open, I'd look for the cat inside and out. Then it would happen again. We all ended up inside and ... not only was there a black cat, it was a small, wild, fluffy kitten. (I spent a lot of this part of the dream worrying about the cat.) Plus, there were my two dogs.

My memory of the dream ends here.

While there are many aspects of the dream that could be related to me, the whole felt alien. The feel of the dream was not what I am accustomed to feeling. The colors and the textures and my own sense of self was ... off.

AND I owned two dogs --- what's with that? I have never dreamed that I owned dogs. In my dreams, dogs are objects of fear.

All in all, it's easier for me to believe that I got someone else's dream than that I dreamed of owning dogs. But I'd definitely like to get someone else's interpretation of this thing, because I don't have one.