Dreamin’

There are times when having a writer’s brain and a vivid imagination pay off. In dreams.

I have some of the best dreams. Often, they are completely mixed up and crazy, but everything is so vivid, so colorful, and etched on my brain upon awaking.

I had another very real dream last night, and it’s so funky I just had to post it.

When I woke up, I told Brett, “I had the craziest dream.” Then, I thought for a second, “How come you’re never in my dreams?’ I accused him (like he had something to do with it).

“I don’t know,” he said, mid-yawn, “You’re in my dreams.”

That’s true enough. Every six months or so, Brett has a nightmare that I up and decide to leave him. Apparently, it’s very real, since he always wakes me up and makes me declare my love, before he (or I) can go back to sleep.

He had this dream about six months before we got married and called me at my dorm room at 3:00 a.m. in the morning to make sure I wasn’t going to break off our engagement.

About two weeks after that, I had a vivid dream about him marrying someone else on our wedding day and taking THAT WOMAN on OUR honeymoon. It was awful. This time, I called him at 2:00 a.m. to yell at him, before realizing it was a dream.

Since then, I’ve rarely dreamed about him. I don’t know why. I dream about my family, co-workers, and acquaintances, but not my husband.

Anyway, on to my crazy dream:

I dreamed that whole bunch of my female family members – me, Mom, Charity, Colleen, Aunt Laurie, and Aunt Laurie’s gaggle of girls – went on vacation.

Except that we were still in Rockford, and all of us were staying in this tiny, white clapboard house.

The house happened to belong to my high school home room teacher, Mr. H and his wife. Who were also still living there and sharing their tiny house with all of us.

We decided to ride our bikes to the theater and watch a movie. I frantically searched for my tennis shoes and by the time I found them, I went outside, and everyone was gone. I couldn’t believe they hadn’t waited for me. I couldn’t believe MOM hadn’t made them wait for me.

Aunt Laurie had stayed back, and so had Mrs. H. They were both like, “Well they just wanted to get going and didn’t want to wait.”

I was furious. Mostly at Mom. I stomped all over the house complaining. Mrs. H tried to calm me down by asking all these questions like, Where did we go to church? How did we like it? How many people were in our church?

I answered all her questions, but I was getting madder by the moment. Finally, the group got back from the movies and parked their bikes across the street.

(I know I said earlier I was mad at Mom, but at this point in the dream, I was very mad at Colleen.)

As Colleen came up the driveway, I yelled at her, “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

She looked really confused and hurt and said, “You’ve never talked to me like this before.” Then, she walked right past me into the living room. Everyone gave me a dirty look and went in the living room to comfort her.

Their sympathy made me even madder, so I decided to take a bike ride of my own. I spent time searching for my iPod, which wasn’t an iPod at all, but a giant boom-box style tape recorder thingy. I finally found it and headed outside.

As I was heading towards the street, my boyfriend (my boyfriend!) was coming up the driveway carrying a 13” x 9” glass Pyrex dish filled with soapy water (why, I don’t know).

Oh, and did I mention, he was COLIN FARRELL! He didn’t have a shirt on, just black karate pants, and was seriously buff and barefoot.

There was a heart tattoo on his bicep with my name in the middle. Seriously.

Anyway, I was still very mad, so I splashed the water in the pan onto his face as I passed him, on the way to the bikes. He just stood there, soaking wet and sputtering, as I went towards the bikes.

There was an across-the-street neighbor out in his yard raking leaves. He was also shirtless and had a tattoo across his ripped abs (this is what comes from watching so many episodes of Prison Break – muscles and tattoos) that said “Toner” in a blue banner inside a red heart.

I ignored him as I got on Colleen’s bike, and then I saw Colin at the end of the driveway.

He had put the soapy dish on the porch and was looking at me like, “Don’t make me come out there and get you.” I could tell he was totally mad. (And who wouldn’t be after getting soapy water splashed in your face for no good reason!)

He started to come into the street to talk to me, and the across-the-street neighbor stepped in and said, “Are you okay, ma’am? Is this guy bothering you?”

And just as I turned back to answer him, I woke up!

Thankfully, I woke up before Colin could cross the street and beat me up. In the dream, I knew he was a “bad boy” and would probably give me a black eye for splashing water on him.

So, I’m glad I woke up when I did.

So, was that a crazy dream, or what?! I told Brett that my dreams are starting to feel like graphic novels (probably thanks to Heroes).

Brett got a kick out of the whole thing – especially me looking for a giant iPod!

So, there you go, I’ll be sure to let you know if Chapter 2 unfurls tonight in my deep, dark slumber!