Dreams

I have often thought about my dreams, I can remember nearly every dream I have come the morning. In my past dreams I have been as fearful, as joyful, as devastated, and as impartial as I have ever been in waking life. I've always been fascinated by those that claim that they "dream in color", because I don't know what that means.

- I know that I dream.

- I know that things in my dreams have colors (doesn't everything in life?).

- Does that mean I dream in color??

I came to conclusion long ago that I dream through my heart. I dream in emotion. Everything that happens in my life, if it has any significant emotion attached to it, that emotion comes through to me in my dreams - whether I try to ignore it or not.

I don't dream often. In fact, before I became pregnant with my first child, I would have said I dreamt maybe once a month - if even that.

Everything changes with pregnancy. Especially dreams. Being pregnant the majority of the last 2 years I am a perfect example of someone who knows. I have visited planes of insanity that I am sure not even the most prestigious psychiatrist would want to hear of.

It's amazing the simultaneous clarity and delusion that hormones can bring. What I dream now is so different - and so much more frequent - than what I had dreamed before.

Just today I was telling my coworker about a dream I had when I was about 7 months pregnant with my first daughter......

I was sitting in a room by myself, happily talking to my very pregnant belly, when a nice man walked up to me. He introduced himself. This man worked with animals in a zoo type environment.

I love animals!

He seemed like a nice man, so we began a conversation about nothing in particular.

A few visions later, I was walking into my house, and my husband was home sitting on the sofa. I was no longer pregnant! My husband seemed very surprised to see this, but he was even more surprised to see that I was carrying in my arms a chimpanzee!

"Honey, where is our baby??" he asked me.
"OH! I traded her for this monkey! From a very nice man. You would like him." was my response.
"You traded our baby for a monkey!?!?"
"Well...." I said, "I figured that we could always have another baby... but how many opportunities were we going to get to have a monkey!?"

**See note.


Now, before anyone begins throwing stones (or anything else more suiting with the dream), let me state here that I would never, NEVER, in waking life have considered trading my unborn (or born) child for a monkey..... although I do tell her sometimes, in jest, that I will trade her for one if she doesn't behave!

She's just turned 1. She doesn't care. In fact, she calls her stuffed monkey Daddy. I chuckle every time I correct her.... maybe that's why she keeps doing it.

After the dream I awoke very amused by my own minds creativity, and shared my amusement with my husband. He looked at me incredulously. I believe at the time he was attempting to determine if I could possibly, actually, realistically do something like that.

Thankfully he came to the (coerced) conclusion that I would not. Pft.

So, even though dreams come more frequently, they have so much less substance to them. Before, I could analyze and relate each dream I had to a situation in my life.

When I am pregnant, however, the only conclusion I can draw... is that I really really really want a monkey.

**Even now I nag myself that a chimpanzee is not a monkey, so please spare me the reprimands. I cannot control my subconscious mind. I consider that to be a good thing.

Making Memories

Lesa (my wonderful friend) left me a comment today. She said that she saw 2 kids catching tadpoles and she thought of me. I have been so busy with everything that is going on in my life; figuring things out and situating changes that are being made, that I think I am forgetting to pay attention to all of the little things that make me happy. The opportunities for happiness that are the reasons why I work so hard for my family.
I saw her comment today and it made me laugh. It brought back the memory for Duane and I of the morning of the day I went into labor.....

We were driving back from Redding the weekend of my brother's wedding and decided to stop and get lunch and take it to the park in Red Bluff to eat so Chase could run around. The park we went to was a bit out of the way, but it has a lot of memories for me. I used to go there and catch pollywogs with a dear friend when I lived in Redding. As luck would have it pollywogs were in season!

I couldn't just STAND there.....

So there I was, bare-foot and 39 weeks pregnant standing in the middle of the creek catching (and releasing) pollywogs in the sun as Duane and Chasey stood on the rocks watching.

Just remembering that morning makes me smile.