I Like Dreamin'

I started writing this because I have so many things swirling in my brain related to my fascination with dreams. Some of them are in notebooks, some are on random scraps of paper. Some stuff is locked in my head until I find a way for it to make some kind of sense. See, I've had this thing about dreams ever since I can remember. I recall nightmares as a kid where I was being chased by all kinds of things. Usually vampires. (Which is probably why I'm not as into the whole vampire thing as a lot of folks are these days.) They would chase me for miles and I would run until I was tired; then I would fly. It was the most natural thing in the world to me. So, imagine my surprise when I learned (as an adult) that everyone didn't fly in their dreams. Funny thing is, after that I still flew in my dreams but never quite as high. My feet barely left the ground. Hmmmm.

I also left my body sometimes when I slept (still do). I didn't understand the concept of astral travel then. I just thought something was wrong with me. I was afraid my parents would think I was possessed with the devil and make me participate in an exorcism. When I was in college, it happened once when I was home visiting. I told my mom and she just shrugged and said "Yeah, I don't know what that is." That was the end of the discussion. At that point, I convinced myself it was a brain tumor and decided I would suffer in silence.

Yet, in my family we talked about dreams a lot. If someone dreamed about fish, the women in the family would start investigating to see who was pregnant. And if you dreamed about a lot of water, something big was about to go down. If the dream was too complex, we took it to my grandmother. If she couldn't interpret it, no one could. When my grandmother passed, she left her gift of dream analysis with us. There are a couple of us in the family , that seem to have a knack for it. For me, it is part of who I am. I've studied dream books and dreams--mine and other people's-- kept journals, given workshops; I've used my dream world to transform parts of my waking life. Hopefully, I'll have an insight or two that helps you transform your life. Welcome to my dream world.