Tsunami Dreams

I’ve been planning a trip to Hawaii with my partner for the last few weeks and I dreamed about being there this morning. The other day I was thinking about what we’d do if there was a tsunami while there, whether or not a 2nd or ground floor condo would be wisest and if we could run to higher land in a snap. These are the things I think about. Call me a worrier. I just like to cover all my bases. This way, nothing ever surprises me.

In my dream I was swimming in Maui’s waters and, out of nowhere, a lifeguard starts to rope off an area about 100 feet out from the shore. The rope had these small red triangle flags on it. Apparently, there were strong riptides and he didn’t want people venturing out. I got out of the water and waited for conditions to change. About a minute later the waters were calm, so I jumped back in. Suddenly, there was an enormous ebbing of the tide and I was on the beach, no longer underwater. I knew what was happening. Then I saw this beautiful, smooth, horrifying wave that had gathered up strength and was preparing to crash. I ran down the beach looking for my partner and found some of my girlfriends who said that he was okay but that they couldn’t locate him. I woke up abruptly and felt as if I had been forced through some time barrier that had thrust me into the present: March 31st, 8:30am, San Francisco, California. The good thing is, I found my partner. He was getting ready for work and completely unscathed.

What Comes to the Surface

Being out of work and having lots and lots of time, desires/life-dreams seem to come up more frequently than they did when I was working FT (full-time). For instance, I’ve wanted to sing and pick up an instrument lately. I’ve had this desire many times before, but when I worked FT it bugged me about once a month. Now it’s once every 2 or 3 days. I guess it makes sense. I have more space and time to even consider doing things that I like to do. But I’m wondering how these desires initially got so far away from me in the first place. The answer is probably obvious, but I still think it’s important to consider.

Things are easier to see after you’ve sort of “broken-up” with your job. You realize why you left, you know why you’re better off now, you know what’s good and what’s bad. All this “sight” comes to the surface…all this visual acuity…inner-visual acuity. It’s what happens when you go on vacation…but I’m on a long one…with no warm beach or fresh fruit…and no nice hotel. Hey! This vacation sucks!

Dreaming Every Night

Being unemployed, I’m sleeping a full night’s sleep. When I was working an 8-5 job, I would go to sleep around 11:30 or 12 and get up at 6:30 in the morning. That’s around 6 & 1/2 or 7 hours of sleep and it never felt like enough. Waves of sleepiness would hit me frequently throughout the day. I knew it was too little, but I never tried to change it.

Now, by body is getting (and telling me that it wants) almost exactly 8 hours each night. I don’t use an alarm anymore and my head pops up at the 8-hour mark every morning! It’s wild! So, if I ever have another 8-5 job again, I gotta remember this and give my body what it wants: eight long hours.

And along with all this sleep has come all this dreaming. I haven’t dreamed so consistently in years. It’s really amazing. Is it attributed to the fact that I’m getting 1-2 more hours of sleep each night? Is it that I’m more well rested…cumulatively? Is it that I am going through a lot of change and my mind is taking in a lot of new ideas and thinking many new thoughts? Is it that I spend much of my day alone and don’t get to release what’s going on in my head as often as I was able to before, when I interacted with humans? Well, that’s one of the reasons I decided to start Sweet Strain. Perhaps my dreams will start to become less vivid once I really get on a roll with this blog. I sure don’t want them to lessen, but I’ll try to stay aware of it. And then I’ll have to make a choice: dreaming every night or writing Sweet Strain?