Dreams

I seldom remember dreams longer than two seconds, but one of several weeks ago stayed with me all day and is still quite clear in my mind. It was an afternoon following some big gathering in the town and I was on a street, preparing to enter a building of several stories, such as an office complex. Across the road from this building was a well-kept section of suburbia, lovely older brick houses set back off the road with expansive lawns and sensibly placed shade trees. In the front doorway of one house stood a young woman, yelling, and evidently coming outside, with her eye on me. Her hair was dark brown, lots of it, pinned on top of her head without styling. Her lips were messily painted an orange-red, yet her rightful color was a blue-red. She wore a simple white cotton dress with tiny flowers all over it, reminiscent of dresses made from “designer” flour sacks several decades ago. The dress needed a belt.

In the dream I recalled learning in Introduction to Psychology class that the first sign of serious mental disturbance was letting the hair go unkempt. Perhaps forgetting a belt was second. [Don’t mistake a styled messy hair-do for letting it go.]

Meanwhile the girl—who appeared to be older now, maybe thirty—was getting closer to me and wielding a slab of wood, like two feet of a slender tree trunk, as she screamed at me, “I’ll get you.” I was afraid to enter the office building, for it seemed to be Saturday, possibly with no one else in the place and she might corner me there. That’s when I awoke, but not the least bit afraid.

When I told this dream to a couple of friends, they were amazed at the details of the dream, and the colors. I was amazed that everyone didn’t dream in details and colors. Does one need an overloaded imagination for such dreams?

♥