Dreams

My name is Saralynn, and I’m a dreamer.

Every night, I dream. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember, and I’ve never really thought about it a whole lot.

But some nights, I do think about it. I’m no psychoanalyst, but every now and then I wonder if my dreams have any meaning. They’re never profound. Sometimes they’re funny. Now that I’m married—to someone who never remembers his dreams—I realize that maybe I’m a little strange. I can remember dreams from as far back as ten years ago as if I’d dreamt them yesterday. Is that unusual?

I come from a family of dreamers, too. My dad has told me that he dreams sometimes about being at school, ready to take an exam, and suddenly realizing he’s never attended class. I haven’t had that one yet, but then I only spent four years in college.

We do have two dreams in common, though. A few years ago, I dreamt more than once within a few weeks that my teeth were falling out! When I mentioned it to Dad, he said he’d had the same dream several times.

The other dream we share is the Travel Dream. This only began for me relatively recently, but it’s a real plague. I can remember distinctly at least half a dozen of these dreams—getting to the airport and not knowing what the flight number is or when the plane is taking off; getting to the gate and discovering we’ve forgotten to check in our baggage; deplaning and realizing there’s some sort of problem in customs… Oh yes, the Travel Dream is quite fun.

But some dreams aren’t fun. I remember clearly my first nightmare as a young adult. It was the spring of my junior year of high school, and it was just awful. I can still see the images in my head and shudder. It even had a monster in it, one I never actually saw but was running from after seeing all my friends killed.

And since I’ve been married, I think I’ve had more bad dreams than ever. My analysis of that fact is simply that I have more to lose now, so more things will disturb me. Sometimes, I’ve even woken up crying and had to wake David to comfort me. Weird.

Last night, I dreamt that Matthew McConaughey sent a car in reverse through a wall just to get someone killed. In the dream, it was someone I knew, and I was screaming, “Michael! Michael!” and scrambling to pull away the plaster and rubble. Then, when I arrived at the car, it was my baby boy, Timothy! He was badly hurt but still conscious, and I tried to get him talking to see if he still had any idea who or where he was. (This of course is dumb because he can’t even talk yet, except for a few words.) I ran all around the accident scene, trying to figure out how to call 911 and wondering how we would pay for the medical bill—all the while crying because Timothy was hurt.

Oy! What a dream! After something like that, I’m almost afraid to shut my eyes tonight. What will I dream of next?