A Dreaming Psycho

How often do you remember your dreams? I think that I'm lucky if I can remember (even parts of) mine twice in the space of about two weeks. I know people that can trot theirs off from start to finish and it makes me slightly jealous - until recently anyway. I had a dream a couple of weeks back that really creeped me out and put me off wanting to remember my dreams so much. Below I'll give a brief description as to what happened and how I felt when I woke up and then, if you haven't closed your browser by that point, I'm going to see if this reflection has helped. I've heard that you should write your dreams down when they are still fresh in your memory because over time it builds up a picture of your subconscious. I think that my notebook would be a very slim volume with a few less than savory reminders of my night-time wonderings.

It was a dream that I've had many times in the past and one that I'm fairly used to. The basic model is that I go on a trip somewhere (which on this occasion I can't remember where or why but I'm sure I had my reasons) with a group of undefined people. These people could be friends, family members or just people that I know of - I can never understand the rational behind the group that I go on this trip with because there is never any correlation from one dream to another. It was a mix of the first and last of the groups of people that I've mentioned above that I was with on this particular night and it was the latter that made the dream stick in my head. I was in a hostel with these people (which makes sense because I've spent a few weeks in hostels this summer) and I was spending a lot of time with one girl in particular. Now this girl is someone that I know of but have never properly met. Our paths may have crossed a few times but I've never really talked to her and nor does anyone else that I know. The thing was that we were spending a lot of time together and you'll know that when a dream is so vivid when you wake up you have to rationalise whether it really happened or not. Of course it didn't and never will but it took some time to come to terms with it because I think this dream was about a particularly long trip and therefore we had spent a lot of time together. For a moment after I woke up I had to convince myself that I hadn't fallen for this girl who is more or less a stranger to me. Anyway I slapped myself into shape, threw some cold water on my face and remembered that I am as single and solitary as the day I was born.

So what should I take from a dream like this? First of all I should point out that these 'journey' dreams are amongst my favourite to have and probably the ones that I remember the most. I'm sure that there is something to be taken from the fact that I'm always on the go in my dreams and that I never seem to be anywhere that is particularly familiar. That said and done, what do I take from this girl that seemed so familiar and yet is a comparative stranger in reality? The answer is nothing. For want of a better phrase, I rode out the nice feeling I had in the immediate aftermath of the dream but I'm a realist and therefore there is nothing much for me to take from that kind of situation. It's nice to remember dreams but maybe I just don't deserve to because I don't appreciate them as much as some people do. I'm not a huge fan of sleeping but sadly that's just the way it is and therefore spending 8 hours in a super-comfy bed dreaming about completely random stuff is just something that I'll have to put up with - bully for me.

Thanks for reading and I hope you are all enjoying your summer holidays whatever you may be doing,

Martin