I didn't get much rest that night. It's difficult to rest when you're involved in a murder. When the alarm went off at six a.m. it was still dark. I groaned. I don't do early risings at the best of times, but having stayed up very late the night before, I needed just a few more minutes. So I bashed the alarm and went back to sleep.
At ten past seven I bolted upright, rigid with panic. I'd been off in the land of my subconscious where the goings-on are much more interesting than those in my waking life. Trouble is, I usually can't remember them. As soon as my eyes open and the light gets in, the characters in my dreams scurry off around corners, and, try as I may, I cannot call them back.
But this time I did! It was all fresh in my mind.
I had murdered somebody.
I was very calm in this knowledge, whereas the waking me would, first of all never have done it, and secondly, if she had, would have been a mess of guilt and jitters and nerves. But no. There I was, cool as a cucumber, unencumbered by guilt or remorse, walking along in the half light, carrying a box under my arm.
I was in a place that my dream self knew well, but my conscious self does not know. It seemed to be a village. It was dark and the street was deserted. The box was made of shiny black plastic, with a hinged lid. It was flatish and rectangular, and it contained the remains of my victim. No blood, no guts, no gore, just facts. Cold, hard, dispassionate facts.
I went into a barn-like building where I met and was greeted by a man who seemed to know me. He appeared to be in a workshop of some sort. I was not alarmed to see him. But when he saw the box I was carrying he tried to take it from me, telling me it was one of his pizza boxes. [I never said this wouldn't be bizarre!] I clutched it tighter to me and refused to give it up. I knew that if he opened the box, I'd be exposed as a murderer[ess?]. Who my victim was, why I had killed her, how I killed her, and what I was planning to do with the body, were all mysteries, parts of the dream that scurried away as soon as I opened my eyes.
I have no idea what happened after that because that's when I woke, in a panic, realizing I had to be somewhere by 8 o clock and it was already ten past seven.
I am fascinated by the places I go to, and the things I do, when I close my eyes. I know that, often, when I am fretting and worrying about something in my waking hours, the solution will come to me when I am fast asleep. And while that is helpful and amazing, it reinforces my feeling of the unfairness of it all: that I am deprived of fully knowing who I am, when I can recall so little about the state in which I spend so much time.
Any thoughts?
13 comments:
I believe dreams are our minds' way of processing issues, thoughts and feelings. ( But I completely avoid offering dream interpretation unless someone is an actual patient of mine.)
I would liken dreams to the organisation that takes place in a library ( or computer ). It is the time when variuos volumes may be taken out and read / explored. It is a tidying time - putting things back in the correct and ordered place ( on a shelf or in a storage place.) It is the searching for information/ subjects that have occured during waking hours. It can be the delving into times past or present. Somtimes the ideas; subjects; characters become mixed up and that is what makes dreams interesting/ bizzare/ frightening.
Merely my idea! Mostly I forget my dreams and only remember ones I call nightmares.
Do I have the comic strip for you! Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend, a strip done by Winsor McCay back in the early 1900s. It centered on the strange dreams and nightmares the protagonist had as a result of having eaten Welsh rarebit.
Here's hoping that tonight's sleep will be less eventful!
Fascinating dream! I think we try to work out things while we sleep, but I am also deeply frustrated that so often, my most interesting dreams slip away and can't be retrieved.
I am not a therapist but suspect that murders do not always signify that one wants to kill someone, but perhaps that something needs to be finished so that a new endeavor can begin. The bloodlessness of your victim may represent a need to neaten up messy circumstances that may in a sense be killing your spirit.
But again, I am a total amateur who simply can't resist trying to analyze things.
I do not know what it all means, but am amazed that you can recall it all. My usual dream is trying to depart, or catch a flight, and there being an endless series of mishaps to prevent getting there. Such dreams engender feelings of real hopelessness and helplessness and are just horrible.
Word verification is facionot.
I'm never sure what dreams mean! I do recall them, sometimes. The last one that woke me had an earthquake at a school where I was looking through my "interview testing skill results"... but I didn't stuff anyone in a pizza box... had you had pizza and/or indigestion the night before? :)
I think the murdered victim was your diet which died horribly when you consumed the house special pizza with extra toppings. The man in the barn was your fitness instructor who was in the midst of carrying out a weight loss workshop and he was trying to get you to confess to your calorific crimes. Thus says the squirrel and I consulted with Paul the now famous octopus.
Yes... this may make me feel differently about you for a while, Molly...
The dreams that I remember usually have me about to face a class and I've done no preparation at all and am going to have to wing it for two hours (all our classes are two hours long). I never am in this situation and it's always such a relief to wake up.
Dream symbols are often interpreted as the opposite of what they seem to represent. Death = life, and so forth. Have you been holding back on starting something? Is there an idea in your mental black box, waiting to be shared so it can "come to life"?
Or maybe you should choose a different before-bed snack...
um.
molly?
quick, run over to my blog and comment before anna does.
and don't eat pizza before bed!
Well, first I should apologize for not having such thoughtful insight into your dreams as many of your other commenters. I had to chuckle at your last paragraph where you mentioned that sometimes you dream the answer to your problems -- so the obvious extrapolation here is that whatever is bothering you can be solved by killing someone. ;-)
And how did I miss this post? I'm reasonably caught up with my google reader and this post didn't appear. Arrrgh! In a hysterical twist of fate, I came over here to grab your e-mail so I could tell you to get over to Brigette's and comment. But she beat me to it. And I beat you to commenting on her blog. And you beat her at commenting on my last post. We're all stuck in a giant game of paper-rock-scissors!!!
Goodness me! Sweet Molly a murderess- never! Sometimes ideas need a good killing off?
Loved reading the combox!
I think we're all largely strangers to ourselves. I've often felt as though the inner world is a vastly larger place then the outer physical world of planets, stars, solar systems and galaxies.
You should be thrilled to have such a rich dream life, I think.
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