I'm dreaming of a...

 I bet you sang the rest of that title!

Have you ever tried to interpret your own dreams?  Sometimes I have the most bizarre, nonsensical dreams that if I made them into a movie, someone would say they are way too far-fetched to even classify as fantasy.

Do you ever have recurring dreams?  Growing up, I frequently had a dream about being chased in a forest by a bear.  That's probably a very common dream, or variation of a common theme.  But what does it mean? Was I afraid of something?  Why a bear?

Scientists are actually studying the brain during dreaming.  There is a great article from Time magazine that discusses research and theories about dreams.  Some believe it is a brain dump - our brain's way of getting rid of unnecessary information and committing the important details to long term memory. 

Others think it is an expression of our desires and wishes.  Still others think it has to do with problem solving.  Maybe it's all of the above.

Of course no one knows for certain why we dream of a flying monkey taking a swim in the lake with a talking seal.  But my dreams rarely fail to entertain!

And the opposite...

And last, but not least....

Don't forget to link up at Stacy Uncorked and Comedy Plus!

Random Tuesday and Coffee Chat

Today is really random! Random Tuesday Rebel is hosted by Stacy Uncorked.

I would be happy if I never saw the names Kylie Jenner, Bruce Jenner, or Kim Kardashian ever again.  Every time Yahoo sends me a daily update on "news," at least one of those names appears.


Did you see the flak Michael Buble got for that picture his wife took with a girl whose butt was hanging out of her shorts?  Why is he getting hassled about this?  It was funny!  And if you don't want anyone to look, don't let your butt hang out of your clothes.

I've been searching for some new books to read, and two of the descriptions I've read this past week used this phrase:  "In a tiny, seaside town..."  Just something else I noticed that has no real consequence in the grand scheme of life.

Lately, I have been dreaming about walking... a lot.  Long distances, going places I would normally drive, on roads that cars normally drive on, around obstacles, sometimes with other people, sometimes alone, never reaching my destination.  I am having these walking dreams all the time, and when I do, I feel like I am actually walking those long distances.  But I never get to my destination before I wake up.  Too bad the walking I'm doing in my dreams doesn't burn real calories or I'd be skinny!

Tuesday Coffee Chat, hosted at Time Out for Mom, asks us to tell about a recent fear we've faced.  About a month ago, I took my mom to the hospital for a colonoscopy.  This wasn't her first rodeo, as we say in Texas.  She has been through the wringer a number of times:  survived removal of part of her lung from cancer, mastectomy due to breast cancer, knee replacement, shoulder surgery, back surgery, you name it, she's probably had it.  She had some pre-cancerous polyps removed a few years ago, but this time, I'm happy to say, there was nothing abnormal!  My fear is losing her.  I've lost my dad, and it's the hardest thing I've ever gone through, and I don't know what I will do when the time finally comes.  I don't like to think about it, but sometimes, we must.  I'm just thankful that it's not right now.

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I'd Love to Build My Dream House

The topic over at Heads or Tails this week is BUILD.

I mentioned in my Give Me 5 Monday post that if money were no object, one thing I would love to do is BUILD my dream house!

Everyone in the family would have their own bedroom, closet, and bathroom designed to fit their personality and needs, and no one would have to share.

We'd have a play room, a game room, and a TV room.

Of course, I'd BUILD a scrapbook room and a library! We'd have a living room, family room, entertaining room, kitchen (maybe 2), several dining rooms, and an outdoor grilling area near the pool and hot tub.

Wouldn't it be so much fun to BUILD your dream house!?

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Nightmares

Boy, do I need a dream catcher!

What a NIGHTMARE during my nap a couple of days ago, the day before my twins returned from their two week visit with their dad, and shortly after my husband and I returned from our trip to Arizona.! This one was so intricate, and it left me feeling haunted for the rest of the day.

I have written about crazy dreams/nightmares before, and I've written about recurring dreams before. I can't even begin to describe this dream in all its vividness, and I think if I described the entire dream, some of you might think I was seriously disturbed. Granted, you may already think that! LOL

Let me give you the gist. My husband and I along with my twins and oldest step-daughter and our dog, Rocky, were on vacation in Arizona. It didn't resemble the Arizona we just visited in real life, but it was Arizona in my dream. I don't know why the oldest step-daughter wasn't with us. Off somewhere with friends, probably.

My girl twin and I had gone off alone in a car to explore. I let her drive. SHE'S 12! We kept going up and down hills and through the casinos and resorts and around more curves than a roller coaster. The driveways of the hotels were actually part of the street. You couldn't go around them. At one point, the drive was actually part of a water ride. I took over driving, and Ang was supposed to be looking at some photos on the laptop. She fell asleep, and I reached over and pulled her hair hard, my tender-headed child, until she woke up. She told me she had lost $500 that morning when she was hanging out our hotel window. Someone had snatched it from her. Where did she get $500? She said it was her brother's money that he got from selling junk he didn't want anymore.

Neither of us could remember where we were staying, the name or location. (Maybe that's why I call myself Forgetfulone?) I would remember that in real life, though. We drove in the general direction. All of a sudden, we were on a motorcycle - yes - with the cell phone and computer with us, but the cell phone was losing power.

I'm going to leave out a lot of this. We ended up finding one place open, a smoky bar where only one person spoke English. She was supposed to help us get a phone book. That didn't work out, so we were back outside looking around (leaving out some scary stuff here, too). Anyway, I went in to plead with the girl at the bar to call 911. I thought Ang was right behind me. She wasn't. I went back outside only to find the computer smashed to the ground and my daughter gone.

Frantically I searched for her through narrow streets enclosed on two sides by rock walls. At one point, giant gopher-like animals were dropping ceramic bowls on the street below to break them. I found three cardboard boxes, and that's where I found my daughter, unharmed.

I'll leave out a bit more craziness and end this by saying we never found our way home before I woke up! Why couldn't I remember the name or location of the place where we were staying? Why didn't my husband try to call me? Wasn't he worried? Why was no one on the street or out and about, and how come no one could speak English? And who took Angela? How was I able to find her so easily, unharmed? And what's with the gophers and the ceramic bowls? And why was I letting a 12 year old drive in the first place? And how did we suddently go from a car to a motorcycle?

Oh, I left out so much because this dream was too vivid and too weird. Correction: NIGHTMARE. Thank God it wasn't real! Care to comment?

These Dreams... Continued

I had two recurring dreams as I was growing up. The first one was about a bear chasing me in the forest. I had that dream at least once a week when I was from the age of remembering dreams until I was about 7 or 8 (till 1972 or thereabouts).

The other recurring dream started when I was about 8 or 9 (1973-1974). It was always about an evil house. It was a two story house (maybe 3) , with big dormer windows in the front and a balcony on the side. I never even lived in a two story house until three years ago, so I don't know why I was dreaming about one. Anyway... the house was bad, as in evil. It trapped me inside, with the walls closing in. There was a force stronger than I, and it was pulling me. I always remember waking from that dream in a cold sweat trembling with fear. I had this dream over and over many times until I was a teenager

The bear story? Who knows what that was all about. But I swear the house in the second recurring dream (nightmare) was the Amityville House, and I dreamed about it before the murders happened (1975) and before the movie came out (1979). It's really freaky. I've only shared this with a few other people - because people tend to disbelieve me, but it's true. The same thing didn't happen in my dream that happened with the murders or the movie, but it was the same house! I was going to put a picture of the house on this post, but I just can't. I don't want to look at it every time I open my blog for the next few days. You can check out these links if you want to. Google book search, movie from 1979, movie from 2005, or the official website.

Things like this freak me out. I don't even go to scary movies - well - not the typical scary movie like Amityville or The Omen. I just don't watch them. And I hate crazy dreams that startle me awake, that make me afraid of the dark, that fill me with dread for the entire day.

One commenter on the previous post (which can be found here) said she will go through a whole day feeling affected by the dreams she has, just like me. For example, if I dream I'm mad at my husband, or if I dream he did something wrong, I will feel that way the entire day. Dreams can be so darn realistic that it's hard to separate them for real life!

Anyone care to share or comment?

These Dreams

Sometimes I have the strangest dreams, and they are soooooo vivid! Sometimes my dreams feel like they've actually happened in real life, and I will go through the day carrying the resulting emotions as though it did happen, even though I know it didn't. I'm not really sure if I want to know what this means or not. Probably too freaky!

Last week, for instance, I dreamed I was sitting on my stool at the front of my class reading to them. No big deal, right? The problem was that a student pointed out that I had chewing gum stuck between my teeth. The dream was so vividly real down to the detail of the appearance of the classroom and individual students and their reactions, not to mention my embarrassment.

Shortly after returning from our Disney World trip last month, I dreamed my mom and I, along with my 11 year old twins, were going on a gigantic, red roller coaster bigger and taller than any roller coaster that possibly could exist. We boarded the coaster and proceeded to pass through several parking lots, over a field, and many minutes later finally reached the beginning of the ride, all while actually seated on the coaster.

We then had to wait a long time for our coaster's turn to go up the first steep incline. As the ride lurched, sending us skyward, my heart must have skipped a few beats. The plunges, twists, loops, forwards and backwards, gave me a heart-stopping scare and made me feel like we would surely die. I believed we were still on the roller coaster when I awoke.

What was that all about? It felt so real! And my mom would never get on a baby roller coaster, let alone this mammoth! She has back problems, among other things. What I thought strangest was the walk we had to take to get to the boarding line as well as the coaster travelling through parking lots and fields just to get where it was supposed to start. It's just crazy!

What are your vivid dreams, or do you have any? More to come later, I'm sure, like have you ever had repetitive dreams?

Wordless Wednesday

I can't do "wordless!" My daughter's dream of seeing Rascal Flatts was fulfilled! Nothing can make a mom so happy as to see her child's dreams come true.