Where did I put that diploma?

When I woke up this morning, I had a compelling urge to track down my college diploma to make sure I had one.

It was a dream that made me doubt something earned more than 20 years ago. When the alarm clock went off this morning, it thankfully interrupted a dream that I was back in college trying to finish my degree.

I was apparently even slower at my slumbering education pace than I was in real life. I was a sixth year senior in the dream and seeking out an adviser, because I had no clue what classes I still needed to take to finish up. I only hoped I could finish it in one academic year.

In another part of the dream, or perhaps it was a different dream all together, I woke up (in the dream) on a sleeping porch, presumably at a fraternity. (The fraternity I was in during college had rooms on 2nd and 3rd floors where everyone assigned to each given floor slept in bunk beds. The windows were always left open even in winter, and the room was not heated or air conditioned).

A sleeping porch in a sorority. The ones my fraternity had in
college were nowhere near this nice or decorated.

I woke up on the sleeping porch and turned on a TV that was along a wall, between bunk beds, past my feet. It was quite an insensitive thing to do because people were still sleeping. But apparently I really wanted to watch something on TV.

The dream(s) made me uncomfortable for some reason. I found myself trying to convince me groggy mind that I already had a diploma. I was pretty sure it was on top of the refrigerator. But when I was fixing breakfast and brewing coffee, I look up on top of the refrigerator and the diploma was not there. The doubt returned.

Lately, my dreams seem to take me back in time. Perhaps there is some sort of unfinished business back there. A common theme is that I have accepted a job at a former workplace. I am either on the interview and offered the job while I'm there or I'm checking in at the office when I arrive back in town and something happens that pulls me in to a meeting or into working early. I am not prepared to start yet, but dive in anyway. Some of the people there, those who weren't there when I worked there before, wonder what the hell I am doing and why I am there. And the people that do know why I am there are too preoccupied to tell anyone what I'm doing there.

I don't know what any of these dreams mean. Maybe I need a dream interpreter. A website on dream interpretation, www.dreammoods.com, says on a page about recurring dreams that:

 "The repetitive patterns in your dream reveal some of the most valuable information about yourself. It may point to a conflict, situation or matter in your waking life that remains unresolved or unsettled. Some urgent underlying message in your unconscious is demanding to be understood."

Obviously I'm not getting the message.

Don't wake me, I'm dreaming

She's a beautiful young woman. And there she was, in my dream. She's a former coworker. A friend. A woman I haven't worked with in years and who I haven't seen in almost a year. We never dated. We never shared a moment of intimacy in our life. But she showed up in my dream in a most intimate way.

I don't remember much of the dream, but what I do remember has haunted me pleasantly for the last couple of days. I don't know how we got where we were or why, but somehow, some way, she was topless, and I was sucking on her nipples.

I'm not sure if waking from the dream was a blessing or a curse. It feels like a curse, because I did not get to experience more of her exquisite charms. But perhaps it is a blessing, because I remember the thrill of tasting her sensitive nubs in my sleep. Perhaps I would not remember if I slept on. The only dreams I ever seem to remember -- and remembering dreams is a rarity for me -- is those dreams I have just before waking.

I tried to go back to sleep. Tried to go on, licking and sucking and nippling, but the sensuous moment was lost.

Lost, except for the memory of a moment shared only in a dream.

Dreaming of days gone by

I've always thought I'm not much of a dreamer. When I sleep I mean. For much of my life it has been very rare that I remember any details from dreams when I awaken. In fact I rarely remember if I dreamt anything at all.

There were exceptions of course. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of a dream and on those occasions I would recall snippets from the dream that had awakened me. Or sometimes, in that lightly dozing nap state, where I wasn't even sure if I was waking or sleeping, I would experience a dream-like state.

But lately something has changed. Lately I have been experience some very vivid dissonant dreams filled with characters from my long ago past. I'm not sure what's causing it.

Years ago, when I did dream about people from my high school days, I used to assume it was because I was homesick for Oregon. Well, now I'm back "home" in Oregon, more or less, and have been for some time now. But my dreams are inhabited by people I haven't seen, and have rarely even thought about in many years. It's like dreaming about ghosts almost. While the themes of the dreams are not particularly dark or depressing, I always wake up feeling odd and a bit down.

I like to dream but I haven't really liked these dreams. Perhaps a dream specialist could tell me why.

Good dream leaves a bad feeling

I've felt a bit off all day. The day got off to a weird start.

I've always had a hell of a time falling asleep. As a kid, I would go to bed and spend hours playing out elaborate scenarios in my head.

Going to sleep has never been easy. But once I'm asleep, I sleep the sleep of the dead. On weekends if I want to get up before, oh, say noon, I have to set an alarm, no matter what time I go to bed. On weekdays I set three alarms every morning, and still have to be careful I don't hit the snooze button so long that I don't make it to work until lunch. If there is ever a fire in the early morning hours I'm ash.

But this morning I woke up a couple hours before my first alarm was set to ring. I was in the throws of a dream. A sex dream.

The odd thing is that rather than it being arousing, it was disconcerting. I don't know what it was about the dream that put me off, but I was freaked out, not turned on.

Wasn't I supposed to be turned on? And why wasn't I? It is a feeling that left me empty and out of sorts. That's a feeling I haven't been able to shake all day. It's sort of like the feeling waking up after a bad one-night stand and realizing what, and who, you just did.

Now, it's time for bed again and I'm tired and still out of sorts.

Maybe all will look, and feel, better in the morning.

I lost her in a dream

The alarm clock is set to go off shortly, but it doesn't matter. I'm already awake. I woke up from an unsettling dream shortly before 5 a.m., after not getting to bed until late, and couldn't go back to sleep.

The dream wasn't bad, or what I would classify as a nightmare, but it was unsettling for some strange reason.

I was in a large room in London, participating in a panel discussion that was being either broadcast online or recorded for online distribution. I was on the panel with a couple of podcasters, some other dude who resembled a high school classmate, and me. We were all gathered around a large, rectangular table.

I kept trying to interject into the discussion, but couldn't get a word in edgewise. I kept stuttering and stammering. "But, but," but no one would yield. They just kept talking over me.

Loitering in the background was a woman. She was slender with blondish hair. She was someone I knew well for a long time and have a fond affection for. The time expired for the panel discussion, without me being able to make a single point to the panel or the wider audience and I was frustrated. As the panelist, including me, were getting ready to leave, I walked up to the woman and talked to her.

I was saying goodbye and knew it would be a long time before we would see each other again. I gave her a big hug and started to get choked up. I made some reference to parting ways again. Obviously we had been separated before and were about to be torn apart again.

As I am making my way out the door with the other panelists, the discussion continues, and finally I am able to interject a sentence or two into the conversation, but still keep getting interrupted, unable to complete a thought.

That's when I woke up. One of the ear buds for my iPod was still in my ear and iPod was still playing one of the Podcasts I subscribe too, Top of the Pods, which is based in England. I fell asleep listening to one podcast earlier in the night and slept through several others before waking from my dream.

Even in my groggy, sleep deprived state I realized the topic being discussed on the podcast was the very discussion I had been dreaming about.

I put the iPod on the nightstand, plugged it into the charger and tried to go back to sleep. My mind involuntarily started reviewing the dream.

I realized then that I didn't know who the woman in my dream was. I knew who she was when I was dreaming. Or at least I thought I did. But for the life of me I couldn't place her when I was awake. Her name was on the tip of my tongue. I could just about call her face to mind. But then the imagery and the name got even hazier, fading and withdrawing from my conscious mind. I realized it was lost, forever.

And I couldn't go back to sleep. I was left with this vaguely unsettled feeling, frustrated and disappointed by the lost friend (or was she a lover?) and the lost sleep. So, now here I sit at my computer realizing that my alarm clock will start to buzz at any moment.

It's going to be one of those days.

Technorati tags: Dreams
Insomnia
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Top of the Pods

How long does it take to get over someone completely?

I woke up this morning dreaming about my ex.

We’ve been apart now longer than we were together. But her name still comes to mind. I want nothing more than to forget, but the forgetting don’t come easy. I realize I may never forget her, but I thought by now the memories would be rare and fragile things, muted by dust and ashes.

It’s been a year, give or take, since I’ve shed a tear for her, for us, for the love that I tasted for all too brief a time. But there are still tears. Only now they are for me, for the loneliness that I feel with a renewed and profound depth that I never knew before her. Other people’s stories of loss and heartbreak inflame the scar and start the tears flowing anew.

It was a 15 month romance – 19 months total from first glimpse to last. Now it’s been about 19 months since that last glimpse and 21 months since the heartbreak began with the return of a ring. I’ve been trying to sell that ring for far longer than she wore it. She moved to the other side of the continent, I moved a thousand miles, and still the memories of her confront me everywhere I turn.

Some of the pain I feel may be self inflicted. And some of it may be that I have had no one else to share those moments, big and small, that can create new memories to push the old ones back into the far reaches of my mind and heart.

I know I no longer want her back. I no longer miss her. But I miss so much. I miss being in love. I miss being loved. I miss being touched and kissed. Holding and being held. I miss the touch of another. The beat of a heart next to mine. I miss the future that will never be.

Dreams
Relationships

Only in my dreams

There is something about being back in Oregon. It's affecting my dreams. I've been dreaming about people I haven't seen or heard from in years.

Last night I dreamt about an old friend and his sister. The friend and I have lost touch over the years, and I haven't seen his sister in probably 10 years or more.

I also dreamt about a female high school classmate. I'm not sure why, but she was wearing very little clothing in the dream. We never dated or anything, and I don't ever even remember having a crush on her or anything, but their she was in the dream, being all flirty and seductive, with a ripped body that made it look like maybe she had been working out every second of the day graduation.

I guess dreams don't have to make sense. Life makes little enough sense as it is, why should dreams be logical.

Well, I'm off to see if I can find dreamland again to see who's starring in tonight's nocturnal production.

Dreams

Ex! Why? And Zzzzzs!

I am pissed at my ex. Why? Well, she's been invading my dreams and I'm not happy about it. I thought, and pardon my language, but I thought I'd put that bitch behind me. And now she keeps showing up in my dreams.

I haven't seen this woman since the end of August. I haven't talked to her in months. Why doesn't she leave my subconscious alone?

Last night, while I was sleeping, minding my own business, she shows up. Unannounced. Uninvited. But there she is. In my dream. And I'm not sure why. She shows up at my place, and basically makes it known she's back. Now, I ask what's up, naturally, and she also makes it known that she's going to be also working at my place of employment.

And she also makes it known that we are once again sleeping in the same bed. This happens because we end up in the same bed. And I get hot, because I'm not used to sleeping with two people in one bed. And we are snuggled up, you might say. In a spoon position. So, I get warm and take off my shirt. Well, the next thing you know, we are both naked and spooning. Well, I didn't bargain for this. And somehow in the conversation she makes it known that she doesn't plan to stay. By this winter, she plans to be gone.

The dream doesn't go any farther really because shortly thereafter I wake up, because my alarm goes off.

But still, I'm a bit put out. How did this happen? Why is she there? I didn't invite her into my subconscious. In fact, I have tried to ban her thoughts and memories from my mind. But there she is. The fucking bitch!

I am not happy, and it wasn't a sex dream, so I am really not happy!

Women!

Dreams

Dreamus interruptus

So, maybe I got a little carried away with thinking about finding a naked woman on the couch in that last post. It must have influenced my subconscious. I ended up having a sex dream last night.

Ordinarily, that would not be a bad thing. And this was not a bad dream per se. It just sort of ended with the same sexual frustration all of my too infrequent sex dreams seem to end with. People into dream analysis would probably have a field day with telling me what those dreams symbolize. But it never fails, every time I'm getting a little in a dream, it gets interrupted by other people -- in the dream . Dreamus interruptus.

But this dream was a little more disturbing in that it was about my ex. I haven't written much about the ex on here. A few hints here and there, but nothing specific. The ex is my former fiancee, who broke off our engagement in June after being engaged since December. Anyway, the odd thing about having a sex dream about her is that there just wasn't that much sex in the end. I've certainly heard the jokes about how marriage can kill a sex life, well I was beginning to think that we were getting an early start, because the engagement seemed to kill ours. I think that we had sex maybe once after becoming engaged.

Anyway, there we were in the dream doing the sex. And it was vivid. I think I almost woke myself up because I was actually thrusting my hips while dreaming. We were having the sex in a car in broad daylight, when suddenly my ex, who was on top, catches some movement out of the corner of her eye. But she doesn't get worried that we'll get caught, she gets curious about the hubbub outside the car. So, mid performance, she starts asking, "Hey what's going on over there."

I don't know and don't care because I am pretty into what's going on right here.

But that doesn't seem to matter.

There are people in uniform milling round some distance away from where we are. So, we stop what we are doing (dreamus interruptus yet again) and I am dispatched to investigate. Turns out those people in uniform are police.

So I walk for a while, trying to get a good look at what the commotion is all about. And I walk up to a police officer to see what I can find out. I get no satisfaction from the officer either. He mumbles something about it being nothing really, and it's nothing too worry about. No true answers, but I gather from his demeanor that he's bored, so it can't be too interesting.

So, I start heading back to the car to get back to the business so rudely interrupted, when I get caught up in this throng of people walking down the sidewalk. I feel like a salmon swimming up stream to spawn. The flow of people is working against me in my mission.

Then, out of the crowd, I spot her. My ex. She's walking with someone. A female friend. I know it's a friend, but don't know which one in that vague dream knowledge sort of way. And I'm trying to get the ex's attention. I know she sees me, but she just ignores me and walks on past.

Hey, remember me? We were just boinking back in the car? My dick's still wet. You must remember.

No. No dice.

So, I walk back to the car, not sure what I'm supposed to do when I get there, because there is no one there to tell what I've learned and certainly no one there to finish the job with.

I awoke shortly thereafter.

It was, for obvious reasons, a rather frustrating sex dream. As most sex dreams tend to be. They don't happen often enough, and when they do there is no, um, satisfactory conclusion.

But the real frustration is that the ex seems to have invaded my head again when I wasn't looking. Months ago I couldn't get her out of my head. A minute couldn't pass without thinking about her. Being constantly conscious of her absence. But lately, I've realized that I can go for hours without a single thought of her. In fact, I think maybe I've even gone 1 or 2 days without thinking about her. And that has been, at long last, a relief.

Maybe I am analyzing it too much. Maybe I should be just happy to have had a sex dream, regardless of the end or the snub that was a figment of my own sleeping mind.

But if anyone knows how to prompt a sex dream successfully, please let me know. And if you know how to cast the female lead in a sex dream, I'd pay for that information. I'll schedule some dream auditions.

I hear Jennifer Aniston is available.

Women are still a mystery

Here I am, rapidly approaching 40, and I’m not sure if I understand woman any better today than I did in my 20s.

I got a Christmas card in the mail today from my ex. My ex now lives on the other side of the continent. At this time last year, I was shopping for an engagement ring for her for Christmas, which I gave to her on Christmas Eve. And she accepted the gift and wore the ring for about almost 6 months before giving it back to me one June day. It’s a day I’ll never for get.

Well, it would be hard to forget the day when the woman you love and plan to marry tells you “not so fast buster. Take your little trinket back.” OK, so that’s not a direct quote, but the effect is the same. What the hell is a man supposed to do with an engagement ring, without a fiancée’s finger to put it on? I still haven’t figured that one out. So, for now the ring resides in a lock box, until I figure out how to sell it or what the hell to do with it. But if that wasn’t enough to etch that day indelibly into my mind, it was also my parents’ wedding anniversary and the day former President Ronald Reagan died. A historic day to be sure. Like I will need all those stories in the media every June on the anniversary of Reagan’s death to remind me of the day my world fell apart, let alone the fact that it’s my parents’ anniversary.

So like I said, I got a Christmas card from my ex. I’m not quite sure what to do with that either. I didn’t send her a card. I didn’t send out any cards this year actually. Just wasn’t in the spirit.

So, as one might imagine, it has been hard to separate memories of my ex from this so-called festive holiday season. I’d be happy to skip this Christmas, thank you very much. Let’s just get on with 2005. But interestingly enough, my subconscious mind was not focus on me ex this morning when I was awakened from a dream by the ringing telephone. I was actually in the midst of a great dream. A sex dream no less. But it was not my ex in the dream, or at least not that ex. Although I was dreaming about getting down and dirty with a former lover. But this lover was one from a few years past. We weren’t exactly boyfriend and girlfriend. That wouldn’t be an appropriate description, considering that my former lover was actually married at the time of our dalliance. She has divorced and remarried in the interim. I’m not quite sure why she was on my subconscious, sleeping mind this morning. But I’m not sure that sort of thing should be analyzed too deeply. Sex dreams are not to be questioned, merely enjoyed. If it weren’t for that damn ringing telephone, who knows how that one might have ended.

So, was thinking a bit about that former lover today. We’ll call her T, to protect her privacy and that of her family. But T was a good friend when I needed one, and certainly taught me a thing or three about male-female intimacy. I will forever owe T a debt of gratitude for that. Hopefully, she got some benefits out of the deal as well. We were never destined to be a couple. But we made more than a couple of good memories together. And we experienced a few firsts together as well. But the dream I was having this morning was not a replay of any of our erotic adventures. It seemed to be a completely new situation. If only that damn ringing phone hadn’t spoiled the dream. I didn’t answer it, but it woke me up anyway. I tried to go back to sleep and return to that blissfully erotic dream. That never works. I hate it when that happens. Especially when the only intimacy you experience is in a dream, and even that is a rarity, you certainly don’t want to miss out on those opportunities.

Even women in dreams are a mystery to me. But then again, a little mystery makes life – and dreams – much more interesting.

Relationships
Dreams
Sex