Anxiety Dreams/Anxiety Reality

Last night I dreamed I was going to many entrances looking for someone to take my temperature and give me admittance to a campus (not any of the ones I've ever attended or taught at).  I thought I was standing in the correct line, and then I was given a ticket to a classical concert.  I thought that I might as well go, as it was in a beautiful cathedral.  It turned out to be a Christmas concert, which I thought was out of season, but I'm always up for a Christmas concert.  And then I woke up.

It doesn't take a trained psychologist to interpret this dream, does it?  I've known I was anxious about symptoms and entrance procedures, even before the dream.

One of the many things I hate about this new corona virus is how wide the symptom list is, and how they're all items that could be something else:  runny nose, headache, cough, muscle aches.  It's not like Ebola, when cell walls collapse and victims bleed out of orifices that aren't usually bleeding--that's a clear sign.

I've had a headache off and on all week.  It could be stress, or it could be changing barometric pressure, with a tropical system nearby (another source of stress).  I've had parts of the day where I go between sweaty hot and chilly--but no fever.  Is that a tightness in my chest or just uncomfortable underclothing?  Does the tingle in my throat signify a cough coming on or dehydration in the height of summer?

I even thought about going to get tested, just to put all my speculation to rest.  But a test for COVID-19 would only tell me that I was negative or positive today--if I got the right test results.  And how long would it take to get the results?  By then, I could have been exposed many more times.

For those of us who have been out and about in public, or in offices, I'm not writing anything we haven't all been experiencing and/or wondering about.  But it seems important to capture these ideas.

Tomorrow I will stay closer to home and do some baking with my sourdough starter.  Perhaps I can restore some mental equilibrium that way.

And if not, at least I'll have delicious bread!