Deb Dana Had the Weirdest Dream…

If I want to ensure an eye roll from my husband, parents, or brother, all I need to do is utter the following seven words:

“Last night I had the weirdest dream.”

Because…well, I have weird dreams. And I remember them. And I feel the need to recount those dreams in excruciating detail to the first person I see when I wake up.

Why do I do this? My mother would say it’s because I process verbally. And, okay, that’s definitely true. But I suppose I also share my dreams to have someone else (a) verify that the story I’m about to tell was actually a dream and not real, and (b) help me understand what in my subconscious could have spawned such a truly bizarre storyline.

For example, in the past week alone, I have dreamt the following:

– I was aboard the Titanic as it hit the iceberg and was desperately trying to find my husband on board as I made my way to the stern. I was baffled by the people on board who remained in the bow, yelling, “Haven’t you seen the movie? Don’t you remember Kate and Leo hanging on for their lives?”

– I was living in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. It was scary.

– I gave birth to the baby, and the hospital named him Patrick for me. When I said that wasn’t the name I wanted, my husband told me he’d take care of it. When I looked at the birth certificate, it said, “Brian St. John Serpentine” (St. John pronounced in the British way — “sin-jon”). I cannot tell you how very, very wrong that name is.

Now, I can sort of/kind of explain the third dream. We recently picked a baby name, and doing so involved a fair amount of discussion . But “Brian St. John Serpentine”? We have never discussed any of those names. Brian is my brother’s name, and Jews don’t name babies after living relatives, and the other names…just, no. And as for the other two dreams…where the heck did those come from?

For a while, I kept a dream journal, trying to piece together elements of my dreams to see if there was a logical source for some of the material therein. Sometimes there was — a conversation I’d had earlier in the day or a movie I’d seen on TV. But other times, journal entries would end with sentences like, “And then we went to a press conference for footballers’ wives, including Posh Spice.” Huh? What is Posh Spice doing in my subconscious?

I’ve stopped keeping the dream journal, though maybe someday I’ll pick it up again. Who knows? My subconscious could be full of writing prompts. But will I ever stop regaling my family with the details of my bizarre reveries? I have two words for you: dream on.

Do you remember your dreams? And if so, do you share them with others? Do you ever wonder where in your subconscious those dreams came from?

9 Replies to “Deb Dana Had the Weirdest Dream…”

  1. I had a bizarre dream the other night that my husband was in love with his cousin but was trying to hide it from me. We haven’t even seen this cousin in person in years, and truthfully we aren’t that close to her! I told him and he looked at me as if my brain was broken, LOL.

    1. Hahahaha, this has totally happened to me! I had a dream that my husband’s ex-girlfriend from years ago showed up with a child claiming that it was his. Disturbing to say the least — but when I told him, he thought I was 1000% insane.

  2. I adore bizarre dreams as recounted by others. Not so much when they happen in my own dreamworld. They linger and try to skew my reality, lol. We may just have to nick name that baby Sin Jin.

    1. Hahahaha, noooooo! No Sin Jin!

      Btw, there was an interesting little blurb in the WSJ today about how children have more lucid dreams than adults — but also have the power to change the course of those dreams. I’ll try to find the link!

  3. SAME eye-roll here when I recount my [manny manny strange] dreams. Telling them just helps me understand their meaning-what my subconscious is trying to tell me. They usually relate to little everyday problems I’m trying to work out in the waking world. Love the idea of a dream journal – maybe I’ll take that up!

  4. Dreams are crazy! Have you had recurring dreams? I had one as a child. Several actually, that I still remember. Another thing is that I can often wake myself up or tell myself I’m dreaming and talk to my awake self within the dream. I know it’s called something but I don’t know what. I hate being scared and reason my way right out of nightmares by logically explaining to myself why its not real.

    So many reasons my BFF thinks I should one day, many decades from now, leave my brain to science. She’s sure it’s the only way I’ll ever truly be understood.

  5. I have remembered my dreams and liked sharing them since I was young. Like AmyN, I enjoy lucid dreaming. I would try all sorts of things to increase my experience of being aware in my dreams. I initially did this to overcome nightmares then just for fun. An absurd thing I have done in an attempt to record my dreams…I used a voice activated voice recorder to “improve” the freshness of my recount over writing them down. It was a complete failure as my sleepy voice was impossible for me to understand.

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