I'm tired this morning after a long night of scary dreams. You would think, after reading about Ho Chi Minh (a.k.a. Tran Luc, Tuyet Lan, Le Thanh Long, Dan Viet, Nguyen Lai, Nam Son, Thau Chin ... etc.) all day yesterday, that I would be haunted by his ghost.
Strangely, my nightmarish thrashings were centered around ex-romantic partners. It was one of those dream states that mimics reality, so it felt like I was awake, lying in bed. In the dream state, Jake wants to go into the kitchen. I follow him there only to find my ex-husband making himself a sandwich. When he sees that I'm there, he rushes out of the room, chewing. I go back to my room and slam the door shut. I'm in no mood to deal with my ex-husband. On the floor in a sleeping bag is another ex. She's cold and wants more blankets. But I don't have any extra blankets. What to do? No way she getting into my bed with me. No way.
It was an almost lucid dream. I think, in the dream, This is MY dream - I can make these people disappear. I squeeze my eyes shut and focus all my willpower on vanquishing the exes, but when I open my eyes, what I see first is another ex boyfriend looking mournful and depressed, sitting on my little green couch.
Needless to say when I actually awoke this morning, the blanket and sheets on my bed were completely untucked, as if I'd been wrestling all night long. My jaw is so tight; I'm sure I was clenching. Sheesh.
Though I don't know how to link Ho Chi Minh with all these exes, I'm thinking less reading today, more walking around, is probably a good thing. I'm off to see the Sufi acupuncturist, too. That always helps.
It's interesting - and a bit disturbing - to notice the potent impact that my study of Vietnam is having on my psyche. Yikes!
23 comments:
Dreams like that really can linger thru a day; I've had some of those involving one particular "ex" over the past month. In my case, writing has helped-- here's hoping the acupuncturist will have the same effect!
Mega cool photos.
Dreams are utterly fascinating and such fun to ponder and dissect and help with one's creativity no end
but difficult when full of people one would almost rather not deal with.
Sunny here.
Buster wild at dog park.....excellent.
Reya,
Thanks for your visit and lovely compliment. I've looked at the comment on your new picture and was reminded of something I read in an art book: women are conscious all the time of Being, of how they present themselves to the world. Interesting stuff, considering that some of us have also had-have- public persona.
Your dream, is trying to make sense of everything you are aware of and can control as well as what needs to be discarded. The brain/memory doesn't discard unless it can dream and rearrange first. I read that somewhere too, in conjunction with the need, physical and mental need to go into REM sleep.
What's up with all of these needy ex's? You need to find somebody that is a companion to your adventure not a drag. Are you following the NPR series this week on spirituality and the brain? I think it fits your sweet spot. http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/brain/
Peace.
I haven't been doing that kind of reading lately, but my dreams have been quite active in similar fashion. No ex's yet just lots of comings and goings of people who have been central in my life.
I know that on one hand, dreams are believed to be an ordering of information. But on the other hand, I believe there can be etheric plane communication between beings which is easier to hear during a receptive brain wave state. Perhaps retrograde is stimulating or accelerating communication.
Reading of the demons of Vietnam called up your own demons.
My own dreams have been a little disturbing lately as well but they seem unconnected to my waking life.
Interesting! Perhaps reading about conflict of an international sort has simply awakened personal conflicts. Do you think this has anything to do with your recent subscription to Chemistry?
Dreams are so odd. I rarely recall mine, but the other night I had one particularly vivid and alarming dream. In it, I was standing next to someone (I couldn't tell who) with a gun. Across from them was another person I could plainly see, but didn't recognize. The first person shot the second one three times and the person who was shot said, "That wasn't good."
Wah? The night before I had a mother and baby elephant on the back porch!
No sign of exes at least, Reya!
Kat
i haven't been dreaming, but the stress of last week had really zapped my strength, so I think I know how you feel. Nothing for it but serious R&R...and maybe do something you really really like to do, to lighten the mood.
I think Steve nailed it in his comment.
Hello from Texas! Your photos are great!! Have a wonderful day!
Very odd dreams. I haven't dreamt about an ex in a while. I think their energy stays with us, dormant somehow, until something wakes it up - like your current reading.
With every comment, I wanted to yell YES out loud, and in fact I did shout YES YES YES when I read Butternut's, Ellen's and Steve's comments. (Jake jumped out of his chair for a minute, looked alarmed.)
My exes, the ones in the dream at least, are all of them sooooo needy. YUCK!
Lakeviewer - Just today the Sufi acupuncturist said that dreams are not part of sleep, but you have to go to sleep to access that level of consciousness. Isn't that interesting to ponder??
I'm going directly to the NPR stream. THANK YOU!!
I just had a dream like that were are my "pasts" came for a visit and like you I was unable to wake and be rid of them...I blamed in on the last full moon as we had exceptionally high tides!
Reya, I have been remiss in keeping up with your blog. Today I read back and just want to let you know what a wonderful blog you have. Your posts are so moving and poignant. Thank you for sharing.
Blessings and smiles
Your photographs really do capture the eerie quality of your dreams. I've often noticed that strange in-between stage of consciousness when you start thinking, "I don't like this dream and I'm going to make it stop now."
Have you read Siri Hustvedt's The Sorrows of an American? Fiction, but full of all sorts of interesting stuff about dreams and memory, with lots of autobiographical pinnings.
I haven't. Thanks, Bee!
My theory is ... (this is my third try at explaining) The book upset you more than you thought. Sadness is sadness. You knew you couldn't make sense of Vietnam, so you translated the sadness of the history you read into a sadness that was part of your own experience, and tried to make sense of that in your sleep.
Hi Reya
I have been thinking about your focus on the Vietnam war via reading and visiting the memorial and I want to suggest that instead of the dreams of the exs arising out of the demons of the war your unconscious is in fact working in the reverse order.
ie in order to exorcise your own demons and to put some spirits to rest you actually 'found' the Vietnam book and were impelled to pursue the activity at the wall.
I think this preoccupation you have at the present time is your psyche unravelling and reordering your own wars in order to clear them out and make peace, and it is doing this via an event that made a great impression on you when growing up...the history, the memorial, the restless spirits are stand ins for your own and through doing what you are doing you are enabling your own to arrive at reconciliation and peace.
Happy Days
I had a nightmare not too long ago in which I'd done something very stupid and was upset enough by the consequences to start crying.
I realized, while still in the dream, that something wasn't right.
"BB, you'd never do that," I thought. "You must be dreaming."
So I closed my eyes, concentrated with all my might, and undid the thing I'd done. I was so relieved!
Though nightmares are never fun, waking up from one to find yourself safe and sound is.
I almost never recall dreams in the mornings and those I do are such wispy phantoms their essence has vanished before I can grasp them.
However, it is a warm night here in Toronto and my wife was thrashing about in her sleep and woke me in the midst of a disturbing dream.
I awoke shock that I was dreaming and even more shocked that I could recall the last few moments of the dream. Then again, since the dream was unsettling, perhaps I would have done better just to sleep through it and awake in blessed forgetfulness.
Maybe, like you, I need to go for a longer walk; or put the air conditioning on tonight so my wife sleeps more peacefully.
Delwyn, WOW! As within, so without, or as above so below. YES!
Barry - turn on the A/C. Poor Linda. Sweet dreams!
Maybe the connection is to be found later and not now. Sometimes when I wake up from a vivid dream I, like most rational beings, want to make sense of it right there and then. Let that dream float about you for a while and when you least expect it a theory as to the whys and wherefores will be forthcoming. Many thanks for sharing this experience with us.
Greetings from London.
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