2010
Recurring Dreams – Hurry Up and Catch Me
I spent ten years of my sleeping life on a basketball court in high school, with three seconds left on the clock, in our final championship game of the year, with the ball in my hand, and frozen. Legs like steel, body as if in molasses.
Seriously, brain – high school was more than a decade away. And talk about interpretation: I get it. I felt pressure to perform, I felt as though I’m not good enough, I felt that my performance affects everyone around me, I was scared, I was raw, and I was a failure.
Awesome.
I was ecstatic when I moved from the basketball to being on a mountain. Excellent! Who wouldn’t love free skiing all night long? Me. There was little skiing. There was a lot of climbing. I consider myself a creative being, and all my subconscious can dream up is the most obvious symbolism ever? Climbing a mountain, faced with challenges, must work hard to get to the top. Blah, blah, blah…
From mountains, I had a short stint of having water in my dreams. From stormy waters, I finally graduated to calm, Mediterranean seas. Those were really nice dreams. Except when I was drowning.
I have nightmares sometimes. Like the ones where you wake up crying, screaming even. Most involve family members getting hurt, either physically or emotionally. And I’m the only one that can protect them, and I don’t. I flash back to being on the basketball court, frozen…
Most mornings now, I forget my dreams, but I know they are intense. I no longer keep a dream diary by my bed, so the moment the alarm goes off, it’s as though it wipes my subconscious clean with traffic or weather updates. Regardless of whether I know the content, I can sense how the dream felt, and those feelings often stick with me for the day, or at least set my mood in the morning.
The dreams I do remember are never about my present situation. The people from my past, the vicinities are from another life, and the content seems strangely long forgotten in my present life, but deep-rooted enough to remind me that there are still things my mind is trying to deal with… even though I’ve moved on in my waking life.
Maybe someday soon, my mind will catch up with me.
