Dreams of preventing murders and moving murals

In the last few weeks of being ill, I haven’t remembered many of my dreams at all. Part of it is because I’m sure I am dreaming far less just given the simple fact I am sleeping less. I have rarely been able to fall asleep earlier than 2am every night, and that’s despite usually getting into bed by 9:30 or 10. That’s because my coughing and phlegm keep me awake regardless of how tired or how badly I want to sleep. It’s been pretty miserable. Yet despite this, when I wake up at around 6:30 or 7, I actually do not completely feel like crap and actually feel like I had enough rest to get through the day, which is pretty miraculous given the few hours of sleep I got in a single night.

The first dream I remember was when Chris and I were on a motorcycle, racing through some dead streets in the middle of the night. I have no idea what city we were in or why the heck we were even on a motorcycle, but I do know we were going at a very fast pace, and there wasn’t even a single other car or motorist on the road with us. We went into this crazy long, dark tunnel, and in the tunnel, there’s this strange mural of an endless, rainbow-colored dragon. And as you keep moving into the tunnel, the dragon’s tail almost appears to be undulating and moving closer and closer to you. That was kind of fun.

The second dream was a bit more intense. I had received a freak call from who knows who about the fact that my mom was being held captive at a specific location and was going to get killed. Someone tipped me off on where she was and had a gun delivered to me to help shoot the person who was going to kill my mom. And with timing being on my side, this psycho was doing a countdown from ten, after which he was going to shoot my mom in the head. When I found them (and this guy did not see me), I came silently from behind and saw the guy holding my mom tightly with the gun pushed into her ear. And when he got to the number 3, that was when I pulled the trigger and shot the guy right in the back of his head (I have amazing aim in my dreams!!). I pushed his body over, grabbed my mom and carried her out of the building.

Was that realistic? No. But it was a dream, so…. I’m not sure what to make of any of that. Who knows — is my mom making enemies out there now, and that’s why I’m having ridiculous dreams like that?

Dreaming of an angioplasty

I haven’t been able to remember most of my dreams since our baby was born, but the dream I had last night really stood out and definitely highlights all my focus around my milk supply for baby and how I obsess over it.

In my dream, I was at the doctor’s office going over some test results because of some chest pain I told the doctor I was experiencing, and she informed me that I had a blocked artery that she was concerned about. The only way to address and resolve this would be to schedule an angioplasty for me, which is a procedure to restore blood flow to the heart without open heart surgery. It’s considered a minor surgery… but definitely NOT something commonly done on someone of my age.

My immediate reaction was not to be concerned about my own health or the fact that this was a sign of heart disease. Instead, my response was… is there any way we can reschedule this procedure so that I can do this after I’ve weaned my baby off breast milk? If I have this procedure done, I’ll be off my pumping schedule, and I won’t be able to pump on the day of the surgery or during the weeks after that due to recovery, and that will ruin my milk supply and possibly even cause me to dry up, and I NEED to give my baby as much breast milk as possible! Can we wait until she’s at least a year old?

My doctor looked at me like I was absolutely insane… which I was with the response I had. We were talking potentially about life or death for me, and I was only thinking about… my baby getting my breast milk…?!

Not so peaceful dreams return

Maybe my streak of boring dreams is over. Over the weekend, I dreamt that my cousin texted me to let me know his dad, my uncle, passed away suddenly from a case of severe food poisoning. They said they had already had his funeral, and he took a picture of a copy of the eulogy he did. That was so weird, I thought, because as of this year, it’s already been 21 years since my uncle had passed away. Then, I had a dream a colleague of mine was giving me some nasty feedback about customer work I’ve done, while saying he hoped that feedback from customers about me would improve over time. Lastly, I had a dream I was in my wedding dress in my dad’s car. He was driving me to San Clemente, and as we approached Casa Romantica, our wedding venue, there were these huge, massive waterfalls. It was a very confusing experience.

Whenever dreams like this happen, I wonder if it’s just my underlying anxiety, or if there are some other deeper meanings to these dreams. I never have any idea.

Using meditation to reset your mind

I was chatting with my therapist this past week about how, pretty much ever since I started meditating, all of my anxiety, anger, and stress-filled dreams seemed to have come to a full halt. She asked me when I would normally do my meditation. My original goal was to do it in the morning as a way to start my day, but that quickly got derailed by the fact that I’m never on time at the gym (my appointment time is always 8am Monday through Friday, but I’m lucky if I make it there by 8:05; 8:10-8:15 is more realistic), and if that is not on time, I will never start my work day “on time.” So I decided that in the evenings, shortly before bed, would be the best time. It would be regular. I’d feel zero rush to get anything else done before or after, as the only thing waiting for me after meditation would be sleep.

“Well, that completely makes sense to me!” she exclaimed. “You’re basically resetting your mind, clearing it of all the clutter that filled your mind throughout the day, and that’s allowing you to have more peaceful dreams. It’s not always the content of your dreams that is meaningful, but rather that’s the way it just manifests in your subconscious.”

So her suggestion to me moving forward is that whenever I have stressors or feel a depressive episode coming on, whether they are fertility related or anything, I should step away from the situation and meditate, whether that means doing a quick visualization or breathing exercise, and treat it the same way I treat nightly meditation. That would allow me to reset, refocus, and just bring more calm to my mind. It could take only a minute or five, but that would be enough for me to readjust.

It’s a good idea… once I need to put it into practice, I’ll see how effective it is for me.

Fishing when the big fish takes away all the other fish

The dreams, while peaceful overall, have been pretty plain and everyday, a little boring, without any drama at all since I started regularly meditating at the end of December. Last night’s dream was particularly interesting because it was probably the most “action-filled” of all the ones I’ve had in the last few months.

Chris and I were on a boat being steered by a guide along some huge body of water. It was a hot, sunny day, and we were out fishing. Lucky for us, we’d already caught a number of large and medium sized fish, which were all sitting in a net in an open ice box on the boat. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a HUGE fish jumps into our boat, uses its massive fin to sweep all the fish back into the water, and then jumps back into the water. We’re all soaking wet in the water that the big fish brought into the boat and sitting there dumb struck, not believing what we just witnessed.

Well, I guess there would be no fish to eat that evening.