A Series of Dreams

And now for something a bit different.

I had a series of dreams last night and into this morning that left me more tired when I woke than when I had gone to sleep. It would be one thing if this was the first time this had happened but it's not even the first time that I have had almost exactly this same dream and it has been all I have thought about since waking. And so here we are.

In the dream I have to get some place. It doesn't matter where I have to get to as much as the fact that I have to walk or run to get there and back. This wouldn't be a problem except, in the dream, my legs ache and I can barely get them to move. Everywhere I have to go seems to be up a slight incline. It's not a hill, just an incline, but I can barely get my body to go up the damn thing. I end up putting one foot forward and then pushing my hands against my thigh to bring my other foot up. I walk the way climbers do near the summit of Everest and I feel as though I have just as much of a chance to survive.

In one of the dreams this morning, I was walking back from a visit to some people in a dormitory (more on that in a moment) and I had to get back "home" through some sort of mall. It's a place I've been too many times in my dreams. The hallways are tiled, potted plants sit in the middle, and the place is just about deserted. The only business with a strong presence is a place that sells pianos. They have sales people in the hallway. A dozen of them, maybe more, and each is next to a piano out in the hallway. They are stopping every passerby except me. I keep wondering, "how can they still be in business? No one has money for a piano? No one wants one anymore?" The whole thing is like some artifact from the past that has somehow hung on. That or I have been flung backward. It's disorienting. And I can't get myself moving up that hallway. Every step is misery. Every step is just this side of agony.

In another dream, I'm on top of a rock looking out at a beautiful vista. Someone else is there with me but they are like a shadow. At some point we see a dinosaur-like creature down below and it is a danger to everyone there. It eats some large animal and I'm shocked by this. I point it out. I'm terrified. But the shadow person (people?) next to me explain that it's not one animal. It's a group of small animals and nothing to worry about. I'm sure they're wrong, but when I look back, they are little more than a group of puppies or kittens romping through. It's right then that the rock atop which we sit rises up into the air and I can't figure out how we will ever get down. I start to panic, but no one else is bothered. Don't sweat it, they seem to say.

Back to the piano mall part of the dream. I'm coming from a dormitory I have visited to bring something back. It's filled with people I think I know. In the dream they are all people I have gone to school with, high school I think. I have brought back something they were missing, but no one is happy to see me. Most, in fact, move away. They fade into the shadows. Only one guy talks to me and that seems out of obligation. He takes the thing from me but he makes it clear that he would rather I leave. He doesn't say it, but I hear, "please go." I've done something wrong. I've offended them in some way. I have done some transgression. lt feels as if I should know what that is and the fact that I can't imagine it haunts me.

All of this is to say that my dreams are haunting me this morning hours after I first awoke. Like my writing, I'm wondering what I'm supposed to learn. I'm wondering what I'm trying to tell myself and why I'm so tired. Something is up. Something feels as though it is changing or needs to change. Figuring out what that something is will likely take longer than today. I just hope that at some point I can get some sleep. Because I've got to tell you, I'm too tired to face this morning. Still, there's nothing to do but to write on.