I am amazed at what my brain gets up to at night. I'm also astonished at how creative it is. Sometimes it comes up with amazing art and sculpture that I wish I could remember and recreate when I am awake. It also creates places that recur regularly, with variations, in my dreams, and others that are exotic places I have never visited but must exist somewhere in some reality because they are so extraordinary.
I often wonder if we exist on different planes and visit them in our dreams. I know one thing for sure, I travel in my dreams, which is just as well as I haven't traveled anywhere interesting on this plane for ages.
Many people don't remember their dreams, but I do. I have the equivalent of a movie marathon every night and the plots are all different. My dreams sometimes include my parents, who died many years ago now. In these dreams I find them together, living in a different place each time. Some places are variations of houses they did live in or of an apartment they once lived in. I realize that they are dead, but in a living sense, when I am visiting them and glad to be able to spend time with them. Sometimes they will take me on a vacation overseas or a cruise.
I often dream of my son when he was young. In these, I am usually trying to protect him from something, or I am carrying him. Whatever occurs, I am enjoying him being small again. The major recurring theme of my nightly movies is my childhood home, which I loved. I am so often there that I sometimes think that I have returned, and my parents haven't yet sold it. A strange variation of this is that they have sold it but have remained as caretakers until the new owners arrive. When this happens, I am trying to persuade them to buy it back. One of the great regrets of my life is that they sold this house in its beautiful surrounds when I was in my thirties.
Last night I dreamed of it again but this time I saw a sign showing a future development with three, six-storey apartments was to be built on the huge block of land next door, which also overlooks the bay. In fact, homes have been built there, but the land was subdivided into large blocks and the houses suit the surroundings. In my dream, these had been bulldozed to make way for the units. I was beside myself with horror but knew I couldn't do anything about it. In the meantime, such is the way of dreams, I saw my first koala in the wild (as opposed to a zoo or wildlife reserve) in our huge jacaranda tree and was trying to take its photo. I know from Google Earth that the tree is no longer there, but my dream is true to my history living in that spot. The dream moved on from there to something involving possums and park rangers, with me trying to help them before I woke up. I actually have never seen a koala in the wild even though, by odds, I should have as I live in Australia.
I have travelled to London a few times in my dreams, and once in actuality. It's not that I am particularly impressed by that city. I'm not, but recently I dreamed of a London that was fantastic. It was obviously in the future and the buildings, roads and bridges, that I observed during my taxi journey to wherever I was going, were futuristic and stunning. My inner designer and architect absolutely gob smacked me on this occasion. If I could actually be this creative, I'd be rich and famous. I'm not, but my brain sure is. This leads me to wonder how my brain does this. There are two potential explanations: 1. There is another plane of existence, and I am seeing an alternative reality, or, 2. There are parts of the brain we cannot usually access that are more creative, intelligent and that possess foresight.
I speak of foresight because I have had three definite premonitions during my lifetime. I rule out coincidence because there is no way, in these three instances, that it could have been, nor were they based on fore knowledge. One dream occurred when I was fourteen. I dreamed of an event that made the news, and I dreamed about it before it happened. I heard my father discussing an accident involving astronauts with another man outside church one Sunday and I almost froze to the spot. When we were alone, I asked dad about it and when it had happened. It had occurred three or four days after I had dreamed it. I was really shocked. I told my father about the dream, and he just said the something along the lines of: "You must have heard about it and forgotten." I assured him I hadn't. In fact, I was at boarding school during the week and didn't get news. I also remember the dream, which was visual and upsetting.
The accident had occurred at Cape Canaveral on January 27, 1967, when there was a flash fire in the Apollo 1 crew capsule during a launch rehearsal and the three astronauts died. My dream was slightly different. I saw a rocket on the launch pad that was just starting to launch but failed and fell over sideways to the ground. I knew the three astronauts in it were dead. Then a little boy started to run toward the rocket, from where I was visualizing this, crying, "Daddy". I also had no idea there was going to be a launch and, while the dream wasn't exact, it was timely, the rocket was on the launch pad and three astronauts died. You can imagine me, at fourteen, never having had a premonitory dream and finding out about it from the discussion of a news item. Needless to say, I never forgot.
The second premonitory dream occurred in my thirties and wasn't newsworthy but personal and stunned my husband when he found out. He and I had separated for a few months and then got back together. We were heading to his friend's place, who I also knew, but hadn't spoken to during the separation. I told my husband on the way there that I'd dreamed that his friend had turned his carport into an enclosed room and written computer programs on the walls. My husband was driving and actually turned quite pale. He looked at me stunned before telling me his friend was starting up an I.T. business from home in his converted carport. I managed to creep out my husband on a few other occasions with predictions I just got from 'vibes' rather than dreams.
The third involved our break-up and I won't include it. There were others, not as memorable and having had these dreams, I'm not sure I want more.
In my youth through to my twenties, I would have a recurring nightmare that I was on a beach with my family and a huge wave was coming and we had to run from it. There was no way we could. I hated this dream and, thankfully, it hasn't repeated for decades. The year before the 2006 tsunami, I had a tidal wave dream three times in a year. It was different because I escaped the wave in the dream.
Another dream a lot of people have in common is that of needing help and trying to run, but not being able to, or to cry for help, but can't. About twenty years ago, during a dream, while trying to scream for help, I finally managed to, but really screamed. Ever since, I have been able to talk or scream out loud in my dreams. Apparently, I could wake the neighbourhood. Interestingly, since going off an antidepressant three years ago, I've stopped yelling. I'm told that when I did, I sounded like the girl in The Exorcist.
I love flying dreams; that is, ones where I am able to fly, where I lift of the ground and float above everyone. Every now and then, this dream convinces me I can fly and I'm very disappointed when I wake up. My two least favourite dreams do recur with variations. One involves toilets, the other Funnelweb spiders.
Toilet dreams involve me either having to go to the toilet where I am visibly seen or, even worse, using a really, really disgustingly dirty toilet. The Funnelweb spider, one of the world's deadliest, is native to Australia, particularly around Sydney and its surrounding suburbs. My childhood and young adult home was in Church Point near the Northern Beaches of Sydney. We had Funnelwebs in garden rockeries and occasionally, one would wander across the yard at night when looking for a mate. I dream that they find their way into my bedroom. We try to kill them but there are more. Happily, none ever got into my bedroom but, enough said, they terrified me and now, more so, in my dreams. They are big, black, hairy and aggressive. Also, happily, there is now antivenom for them but I now live in Queensland, which is free of them, except for a variety on Fraser Island (now called K'gari).
Dreams are completely out of our control to manipulate, and I'm always surprised that, night after night, they can surprise me with new plots. I may be getting tired about the routine and ho-hum of everyday life and less excited about the things that used to excite me, but my dreams are capable of new and refreshing takes on life every night, sometimes scary, mostly not. What I have learned, however, and it's taken me this long to realize it, is that a full moon brings nightmares with it. I put up with these as long as I get the trip to the otherworld of my imagination, the side of me I do not know and who has a remarkable talent for inventiveness. Either that or it's taken on an interesting twist on psychoanalysis.
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