Dreams

I've had a few strange ones lately.

Dream 1

Apparently in this dream, Sammy (my cat) was my romantic partner. In the manner of all dreams, this was not strange. He was standing on an ironing board talking to me about how dissatisfied he was recently, and how sad, because I was not spending enough time with him, or giving him enough attention. I felt very sad too. I was petting him while he spoke, though it occurred to me that this was disrespectful because I knew he didn't want to be petted - he was unhappy with me. But of course I always pet him when he is nearby because I like to.

Then I (very insensitively) asked him how he'd feel about us getting a new kitten, because I thought that would be fun. I knew it was insensitive when I asked it. It also felt a bit novel to me - just asking the current cat whether to get a new kitten or not. I wondered why I hadn't thought to ask in the past.

Dream 2

This dream took place in an enormous old house that apparently all of the grad students in my program used for parties. Our director of grad students was there. Sally was also visiting. There were a ton of rooms, all with different things going on. The decor sort of looked like the Old Spaghetti Factory, if you've ever been to one of those (or in other words like an old or possibly haunted house).

For a long time I was trying to track Sally down, but couldn't because she was planning some sort of big surprise or show or experience for the rest of us. In the meantime, I talked to the DGS. He was funny as always. I asked him whether this house had always been owned by the department, or was loaned to us by some kind of alumn, or how it had come to be used for parties this way? (In the dream, I don't think anyone lived in the house full time.) He told me that, no, actually, it belonged to [something like] an aunt or uncle of Lee Ann (who has only been in our program a short time). I was telling him how I could now understand the appeal of being in a fraternity or sorority, just so you'd have that big house for parties.

Dreaming False Memories

When I was very young, perhaps around 4, I had a nightmare. In this dream, I would be in a room, and the floor would tilt a little bit and bubbles would start seeping in at the base of the wall. I'm not sure why this was dangerous, but it clearly was. It was something that had happened before, too. When I woke up, I knew that the bubbles had been a dream, but I still believed that it was a dream about something that had really happened before. It took me a long time (months or years) to convince myself that the bubbles were only a dream, and not even a dream I had had more than once.

Until recently, I hadn't often (as best I can recall) had dreams that implanted false memories like that, but lately, I have them all the time. I will dream of something, let's say smurfs, and wake up thinking, "God, I have dreamed of smurfs every day this week! What the hell is with the smurfs!" And then I'll think, "Shit, is this one of those dream memories?" And sooner or later I will realize it is.

Sometimes it has stages. I'll wake up being annoyed that I've dreamt about a smurf revolution all week, then realize almost immediately that, although I've been dreaming about smurfs all week, the revolution part is new, and then realize hours later that I hadn't been dreaming about smurfs at all, up until that point.

Sometimes the dream memories aren't about dreaming. Last night in bed I realized that all week, or all month, or something like that, I had been thinking and fantasizing (while awake) about something like foursquare (the playground game, not the iPhone app). And then I slowly started to question that and to realize that I hadn't even been thinking about that while awake at all, much less more than once. I only dreamed that I was, and had been, doing such a thing.

I'm starting to find the frequency of this experience disturbing. I think it happens several times a week. (And I'm pretty certain that that is not itself a false memory; I clearly remember thinking about this while awake many times over the past year or so.) I like dreaming, but I don't like waking up believing things that are not true. Is this common?

Should I Be Worried?

This morning, when I woke up, Ed was right outside my bedroom door.

"I was just dreaming about you," I said.

"Me too!" he said.

In my dream, Ed and I were taking some kind of calculus class together. I didn't understand the material presented on the first day - I was missing some background - but I intended to research it once I got home. I knew that Ed would be happy to help me with it, but the thought was intolerable. As I was walking out of class, I was thinking about how he would say, "I can think of nothing I'd rather do than teach you this stuff," and it made me feel deeply annoyed.

In Ed's dream, he was trying to get ready for work, and before he got dressed, a girl from our tennis class came over, and she and I were conspiring to make him late for work. In fact, when he consulted his watch, it was 8:30!

I dream about annoying, unwanted help from Ed. He dreams about being thwarted and having his space invaded.

:-)

Dreams

This morning is my surgical consult, where I get to find out if I'm going to maybe have surgery to fix (?) my neck. And last night was kind of a strange night with Ed. So naturally I had the following three dreams that I remember.

I dreamed that I had some kind of a nervous breakdown and was put into a mental institution. It was a nice place and very restful. I got out after a while, but then Ed made me crazy again (it's just a dream, Ed) and I had to go back in. It was partly because I just never got enough sleep "on the outside." In the last part of my dream I was trying hard not to get classified as actually crazy because then you would get your own room instead of sleeping in the common area, but it was much harder to get out again.

I dreamed that I had some kind of an STD. I don't remember what kind but it wasn't HIV or anything.

And I dreamed that I was diagnosed with some kind of leukemia-like condition. It was probably not going to kill me outright, but was instead a manageable but life-shortening condition like Type 2 diabetes. But I was going to have to go in every week and receive some kind of injections into my bone marrow, which were going to be really painful. I went in for the first two and they were not as bad as I'd feared.

In real life, Mosch is going with me to my surgical consult. It helps to have another person at important medical things.