Monday, June 29, 2009

rem disasters

Do you dream about natural disasters?

I had a dream this morning about flooding (um, big surprise, huh?) Namely, that I went out on my second-floor deck to pick some basil out of the pots I'd checked just before--true! I'd checked them yesterday afternoon--and since the last time I'd looked, the rain had destroyed them and the dirt was all washed out of the pots. Puzzled, I looked down into the yard and it was totally filled with waist-deep, or more, water.

When I woke up out of that dream, I realized that whenever I dream about any kind of weather-related catastrophe, it's always either a dramatic flood or a tornado, neither of which I've ever really seen in real life. I never dream about blizzards or hurricanes, which obviously, living here, I have experienced, nor do I dream about earthquakes or tidal waves or wild fires or any of the other nasty things Mother Nature can throw at us that I haven't lived through. I find that kind of interesting...why floods? why tornados?

I used to always also have a recurring dream about an airplane falling out of the sky onto my house, but I know why that is: I grew up under a flight path to Logan in the summer time and there were often planes pretty low overhead.

Tell me about your recurring dream themes and why you think you have them, if you know.

xoxo

9 comments:

Craig H said...

Similar to your airplane thing, I grew up within a hundred yards of a rail line, and I've always had a thing about trains. (Ironically, I like to ride on 'em a lot, just not stand beside them on the ground--platforms are ok).

I also agree that blizzards are way overrated in the public phobic psyche, even while I'm always the first guy to pack a spare pair of boots and mittens in the trunk of the car come December. (Fear is one thing, respect is another). I'm pretty much the same way about hurricanes and tornados and earthquakes and floods--which I see as all "acts of god" that are pretty easily thwarted by a little advance planning.

Real nightmares for me used to be about oversleeping on the morning of the big meeting. These days they're pretty much limited to running out of beer on a Sunday and finding all the roads north to NH blocked by downed trees from hurricanes and floods and tornados and such.

malevolent andrea said...

Yeah, one of the interesting things for me is that these aren't really nightmares per se. I'm never terribly upset by the flooding or by looking out my window and seeing a funnel cloud. I'm always just more surprised or curious or something. Which makes me think it represents something else entirely, but I dunno what.

I have those anxiety dreams/nightmares about having to take an exam I haven't studied for or finding out the last day of the semester that I'm enrolled in a class I've never been to ALL THE TIME though. I pretty sure those are "procrastination" dreams. :-)

Jean said...

I've always had recurring tornado dreams. I thought they were because I grew up in the midwest and tornadoes scared the crap out of me as a kid. In the dreams, they either scare me and I'm trying to run and hide, or I just sit there and watch them come with, like you said, a sense of curiosity.

I've since read in dream interpretation books that tornadoes are a symbol of upcoming change. Does that fit for you?

malevolent andrea said...

That's interesting! I'll have to notice in the future whether the tornado dreams correlate with changes in my life.

Uncle said...

I'm almost never a participant in my dreams, but either the audience or the director...I do lucid dreaming big time. When I lose control of a dream sequence, it doesn't get scary, it just goes into a loop until I wake up.

There is this one dependable motif that has occurred since I was a kid, one which I'm sure will grow more useful as I get older. Whenever I dream about water in any state--calm, surf, flowing stream, rain, or flood--it's time to wake up and get to the john.
(I am not making this up.)

malevolent andrea said...

That's kind of hilarious.

Have you done anything to enhance your ability to lucid dream or have you always been like that? I love when it happens to me but that's not that often.

Uncle said...

I can't think of anything I've done to enhance lucid dreaming, except that I enjoy it. I wonder if that predisposes me to enter that state.

The loop, of course, suggests a programming error. Perhaps it will be fixed in Uncle v. 2.0.
:)

crispix67 said...

I have had the same experience with the flooding, that it means I have to pee.

And the tornado thing is usually spot on for me, most always comes before or during a change in my life. The bigger the change, the bigger the tornado.Couple weeks ago I dreamed a big F5...huge funnel cloud. This was in the midst of my frantic panic filled search for a place to live(long story, but it ended well :) )

I do have dreams where I am looking for something or someone and cant find them. I also have these invisible lover dreams, where I can feel,smell, taste and hear my lover, but cant see him. Hmmm...interpret that...lol

malevolent andrea said...

My dad had, for years and years, a recurring dream about not being able to find his car. Not that it was stolen in the dream, necessarily, and not that he would be panicked about it, but just wandering around looking for it like, "wait, I thought I left it there..."