Today I'm grateful for:
-dreams. I'm a really vivid dreamer and last night I had a pretty intense nightmare. I was on a boat (surprise) and for some reason I was being interviewed. I couldn't say why. That wasn't the important part. It was the mcguffin. The interview took place on the deck of the ship. All of a sudden in the far distance a massive whale was jumping out of the ocean. Everything was in slow motion all of a sudden. I started to scream (or I should say dream scream) and I run to a back compartment room and knock on the door. I'm hyperventilating and tears are welling up in my eyes. The door opens and its my therapist. She has about four or five bags awkwardly draped on her shoulders and arms of various sizes and a water bottle attached to a long strap dragging on the ground. Seeing her dishevelment I pulled myself together and asked if we could talk. She said sure and said she needed a minute. All of a sudden Hannah and Madde came out from the room too. They asked what was wrong and I told them and started crying again. I mean, I was sobbing like a four year old. My therapist never returned and then Madde and Hannah left to go get interviewed. The boat was suddenly a sub with glass ceiling and we were underwater. I was alone in the glass ceiling room and then what appears right next to the glass? The whale. I start (dream) screaming again and curl up into a ball. The whale is pushing against the glass. I can't do anything. I'm crying and frozen and hyperventilating again. It keeps slamming against the glass. Harder and harder. I hear the glass start to crack. I let out one last cry and hold my breath...I wake up.
Why am I grateful for this dream? Well, three reasons:
1. It tells me I'm stressed. This was definitely an intense stress dream.
2. It tells me what I'm stressed about. The whale represents me feeling overwhelmed about work, scheduling, my mom, etc. My reaction to my out of sorts therapist tells me that either a) in times of crisis if other people are upset that I'll put their needs first, which is 100% true, and/or b) that I feel like my problems are not important and that I shouldn't burden others with them (which is sadly also 100% true)
3. It was a bit prophetic. When I finally woke up and checked my email this morning, I had a bunch of emails that were either adding or conflicting with my already over packed schedule. The dream was sort of warning me about what was about to happen. It allowed me to breathe, refocus, and practice my four steps.
-Free wi-fi.
-A spontaneous brainstorming sesh with Jaime via gchat. I was really having a brain fart. It was a perfect boost to keep me writing.
-CAP. Opening night tonight. It went really well! The audience was super fun and engaging and the play was received really well!
-Late night Chino happy hour with Emily.
-The basics
-breathing
-Laughter
-Laughter
-So much laughter
-as always, my friends
No comments:
Post a Comment