Down the Rabbit Hole

A Word About Dreams...

A dream is rare these days, even rarer is one I remember clearly upon awakening. This morning, I awoke with a flaming sore throat and a vivid memory of a dream that seemed to span hours. The dream landscape was a coastal college where classes were conducted on soft sand beaches that abutted a wide bay. Despite the exterior luxuries, the dormitories amounted to little more than summer camp cabins. The one I lived in was dank and dark and suffered from a spider invasion that should have woken me screaming. In the dream reality, I was alarmingly less concerned about spiders than I was about pursuing an old flame. The dream consisted of me attending classes, reading classical literature and trying to shack up anywhere else but my own wretched cabin. It was a dream wholly uneventful except that I did finally engage in a first kiss, an experience that was so tactile and vivid that I believe I woke myself up to escape it. I spent a few extra moments lying in bed feeling guilt-ridden. Dreams, I have always believed, are the mind's way of processing and shedding unused and unnecessary information and emotions. While the scenery was unfamiliar taken as a whole, looking back I can see elements of places I have been. The bay was eerily similar to the one we vacationed on in Provincetown once. The sands were clearly those same ones I sunk my toes into down in Fort Lauderdale. The spiders, summer cabins and the old flame...I have no idea about. What is most surprising is the amount of guilt and shame my innocent actions invoked. As a writer of erotic fiction, I have imagined far more scandalous actions than kisses and never once felt the least bit ashamed. But this simple kiss from someone I have not thought about in years provoked such guilt! It was strange and somehow even a little charming. Then again, perhaps the guilt is inspired by the fact that in my dream I was not yet a wife and a mother? Was my mind escaping my reality to travel to a world where I enjoyed the freedom of being single and living without real responsibilities? If the dream me had been the real me, I most certainly would have been appalled by the conditions, concerned about the quarter-sized spiders sleeping inches from my head and the last thing I would have been interested in is a kiss from anyone from my past. Oddly enough my sister was telling me about her recent dream. It seemed to be very prophetic in nature, the dream's message clearly discernible amid the jumbled images. I don't think I dream like that. I can't find a single usable or applicable message in mine. It is Halloween, perhaps the spiders were inspired by all the seasonal decor? Perhaps the beach is telling me how badly I need a vacation? And that kiss? I keep coming up empty on explanations for that. It seems my nocturnal musings have left me with little more than a bit of mystery.