Beautiful Bad Dreams

Happily, I don't have many bad dreams anymore.  Strange dreams, yes.  But true nightmares?  No.

The past 3 nights, just before I woke up, I've had bad dreams.  But unlike my bad dreams of past years, they've been very beautiful.

On Thursday morning, I dreamed I was outside of a mountain cabin with my spouse and someone on the front porch.  It was autumnal with sun streaming through the trees.  I was at the side of the house and got trapped in a strange swirl of ice crystals, teeny tiny, sun-sparkly ice crystals.  I couldn't move, and I couldn't call out.  I knew I would freeze to death in a beautiful storm.

On Friday morning, I dreamed about a small house in a swamp.  I was following a female friend (she doesn't exist in my waking life).  For some reason, I needed to follow her into the house, but I realized we were surrounded by snakes in the trees, silver green snakes.  I knew they were very dangerous.  I couldn't go forward, couldn't turn around, was scared to stay in place.

And this morning, I dreamed that I needed to get to the airport, and I was relying on my mom and dad to get there.  But we were in a lovely seaside setting, and we couldn't seem to get focused on getting to the airport.

I can certainly play psychologist and figure out what these dreams mean, what my not-so-subconscious frets about, but that's less interesting to me than the cinematic nature of these bad dreams.  I don't usually dream in such beautiful colors and certainly not in my bad dreams, which tend to be dark and badly lit.  My bad dreams don't usually shimmer so much.  For that matter, neither do my good dreams.

And 3 nights in a row?  I don't usually have bad dreams so regularly.  I don't usually have dreams that looked like they were filmed by the same cinematographer.  What's happening in my brain?

Wouldn't it be wonderful if it was a function of aging?  If, in addition to aching joints, we had more beautiful dreams as we got older?

I'd prefer to have beautiful good dreams than beautiful bad dreams.  I'd like for this morning's dream to be the last for awhile.  I'd even go back to my boring dreams of office work if it meant my beautiful bad dreams came to an end.

I know some artists who would get poetry mileage out of these dreams, but I probably won't.  I'd love to be able to replicate the colors and shimmer of these dreams in paintings or film, but my skill set isn't up to that.

Now it is time to turn my attention to daytime tasks.  I have 2 online classes to prepare.  Luckily, I don't have curriculum to develop.  But I do have to go through the course shell to enter dates, a task which takes more time than you might think.

But the day will not be totally tedious.  I'll go to spin class and swim in the pool, when I need breaks from class prep.  We are grilling a brisket (and all afternoon task) and some rose snappers, a fish I've never heard of, but it looked like a beautiful variety of snapper.  Friends who live in the neighborhood, the ones who inspired us to get serious about moving to a better neighborhood, will join us.  It will be a lovely, late summer Saturday, beautifully lighted with colors of all shades, with no nightmares hovering near.