One of the things I’ve noticed about the dreams I remember recently is that I wake up in the middle of the night, go back to sleep, and a short time later, wake up again. I would have sworn I hadn’t slept at all, except that the dreams are so vivid.
This one from several weeks ago, I didn’t write down until three weeks later, and I still remember:
I am walking, with my daughter, from a house on a hill down to performance down into town. It should take about 15 minutes to get there, and we’re leaving an hour beforehand, so we should have plenty of time.
About five minutes later, I realize we forgot the tickets, so we attempt to go back. But we can’t. The streets are clogged with fire trucks and other emergency vehicles, and the streets are flooded, though it has not been raining. And I can’t keep going to the theater, perhaps buying new tickets, for the same reason. Every street is suddenly inaccessible, even the one we just came down to.
So we walk through alleyways, climbing in and out of non-residential buildings – ending up in the back of stores, sometimes having to jump from one incomplete stairway to another, and terribly worried that someone is going to shoot us. Then we end up having to climb up the sides of the building, through windows we have to open and climb through.
At some point, we come through the back of a store that was a bakery. It has an old-fashioned tile floor and has barrels of flour and other things to make food, but nothing prepared. And we finally see a large window and a door to the outside, and we look out and I have no idea where the heck I am.
[I wake up.]
How did you feel after waking up? I have dreams like this a lot of the time when I’m really stressed out and depressed, and after waking up I feel EXHAUSTED, like I’ve really been doing all of that walking and experiencing a lot of frustration. When things are worse, I sometimes panic in the dreams, and wake up suddenly, feeling like I’ve had a panic attack, which triggers actual anxiety. I’m so tired I’ll lose an entire day to those feelings.
Definitely not well rested. Then again, it could be because of the lack of sleep.
I know that I dream, and they’re vivid while they happen, but upon awakening they’re gone in minutes. I couldn’t tell you right now what I dreamed about last night if you put a gun to my head.
Have you wondered what it meant?
For years I had dreams that the world was filled with zombies, including people whom I know. Later I realized I got those dreams much more frequently when I felt like people were unpredictable. Zombies represented my fear that the world was crazy and out to get me.