a dream and a determination

I just woke up from a bad dream. Or I guess you could call it a middle-aged-married-woman-with-three-kids version of a nightmare.

In this dream I was driving in an unfamilliar area out in the countryside looking for the house of friends. My husband was there waiting for me and we were meeting for dinner. I remembered his directions, "If you drive into the historic part of downtown, you've gone too far." (Never mind that winding country roads never lead to historic parts of downtown. Our mind's acceptance of dream unreality is a strange phenomenon.)

Sure enough, I approach the historic district with it's four story homes, six feet tall shuttered windows, wrapping front porches adorned with strands of tiny white lights. It's a restaurant district.

I become lost in this downtown area and try to wind my way out when I spot my husband's car. Strange, what is he doing here?

I park my car and wander into the restaurant in search of my errant husband. I find myself

standing on a 2nd story balcony, looking down just in time to see my husband who looks nothing like my current husband but like an amalgamation of my former boyfriend and the actor Edward Norton.

Yes, I have the hots for Edward Norton.

I see husband Norton dart across the landing below, smiling over his shoulder in a flirtatious manner, reaching for the hand of an equally firtatious blonde 20 years my junior and 60 pounds my lighter. Think Naomi Watts. And yes, I am a brunette who carries a natural resentment toward all blondes for all the fun I imagine them having.

Also pertinent, my relationship with the former boyfriend partially starring in my dream ended when he began a real life flirtation with a skinny-ass blonde to whom he introduced me nonchalantly one night as he was bartending and I instantly knew something was up. But that's a digression I will resist at the moment. The point is, there's meaningful emotional memory here and I'm staring at it from my balcony perch in a deja vu of disbelief.

The dream goes on to my finding Norton and Naomi in an even more compromising attitude, on a couch in some back room of the restaurant, with me confronting him/them (because Naomi will not take a hint and leave my dream) only to have him/them give me the equivalent of a shoulder shrug, as if to say, "So?"

And there's hardly a more crushing feeling than to have your shocked, broken hearted, cheated on indignation shrugged off as if it's no more of a biggie, than say, finding a small parking lot ding in the rear of your eight-year-old car.

And then the dream winds it's way to a point where I run away with plans to ignore him, in the vein of, I'll show him! But then I remind myself that this is exactly what husband Norton and Naomi would want. So I turn around and desperately hunt them down. I confront husband Norton a second time, a third time with my tears and my hysteria and my How Could You's, my How Could You Do This to Me? To Us? To US?!? only to find him, once again, looking at me quizzically, as if to say, What is your problem?

And to hear him ask what did I expect, after all I was a sour puss, was no fun, was a downer, was boring, never smiled. (The not smiling thing? Something I have heard all my life.) The only thing he didn't say was, And you're fat. But he didn't need to.

And then I see me turning away, finally. Defeated. Devestated. Resigned.

So this is how it's going to be. Divorced and alone at 50. Overweight, out of shape, and out of a steady sex partner and second income.

My head drops, I walk out into the misty night rain, skulking back to my car, heart heavy. I pass a single friend of mine from graduate school who is enjoying a girls night out, and say, "Don't be surprised if I start joining you." She looks at me with an uncomprehending expression but I don't stop to explain.

I wake up with the same sinking feeling I had many years ago, thinking, No man is trustworthy. No man cherishes the longterm intimacy and attachment that comes with years of companionship. No man can resist the younger, thinner, shapelier temptress.

And then I really wake up. I locate myself in my bedroom, under my sheets and my wedding ring quilt, listening to NPR's Steve Innskeep tell us Liberace's Museum is Closing Its Glittery Gates.

I then hear the comforting sounds of Sam getting our kids ready for school. I hear him shouting at our daughter, Don't tell ME to calm down. I tell YOU to calm down! And her usual refrain, Dad! You are SO MEAN!

I stumble out of bed and walk my bleary-eyed self into the kitchen. I nod my head sleepily as Sam tells me his version of the yelling.

All at once I feel better. I smile. And am determined to smile more often.

waking up from bad dream, mad at partner

Those of you who got to this post first and saw nothing but a title probably thought I was posting a reminder note to myself to write about this topic and then hit the publish button by mistake. Well, you would be right wrong. This empty blog post was intended as a little known psychological method referred to as a projective sentence completion device. Or, in this case, "projective title provided, reader supplies blog post." Psychologists are the only specialists who can use projective testing methods, doncha know. I have to keep my skills sharp.

But I was glad to see that virtually everyone who commented indicated I am not alone in this. Well, that's not accurate. I actually know I'm not alone because I hear it from my female friends and female clients. I have not heard of this phenomenon among any many men, unless it is to complain that the woman in his life blamed him for cheating in her dream. He usually is shrugging his shoulders in helpless exasperation, "How can I be responsible for something I didn't do?"

To which I always reply, "You must have done something. Now fess up."

I mean it isn't called women's intuition for nothing, right?

It doesn't earn me many brownie points as a friend or many return visits to my office. But I am just justifying my own f*cked up behavior keeping it real.

I am certain there is some scientific data somewhere to help explain this embarrassing fascinating curiosity of the female psyche but I have not personally read any. Maybe it's part of the emotional wave that Mars Venus author John Grey, PhD writes about. The dream brings on the tsunami. The poor guy doesn't see it coming. He doesn't get out of the way. Cold, harsh anger crashes all over him. He flounders.

The solution? Well, let's see. What does a partner do in real life when he actually has done something wrong? He apologizes. He grovels. He does an extra share of household chores. Or hundred. He promises to take the kids for the day while she gets an all day spa treatment. And then when all of that hasn't worked? He buys her flowers. Preferably roses. Red roses that signify passionate love. Because really? That's all she needs. Reassurance. Reassurance that he still loves her even when she wakes up with the emotional equivalent of an ice pick in her hand.

Is that so much to ask?

the mind's playground

I woke one morning recently in the middle of a horrible dream. It was the mother f*cker of bad dreams. It hung over me the rest of the day even though I realized I was the lucky mom who got to wake up and say, "oh thank god, it was only a dream."

After waking, I pushed back the tears, calmed my wildly beating heart, and waved my kids off to school after hugging them extra close and extra long (hoping they wouldn't notice). I crawled back in bed. I couldn't move, or think, or function.

It was the kind of dream that I will not be talking about. It's the kind of dream I would not want to walk into just any shrink office and share, waiting for understanding or absolution. No way. Not with the kind of dream analysis I've heard, was trained in, rejected years ago as wasteful, misleading, sometimes harmful, often a form of the therapist's projection rather than meaningful to the owner of the dream.

I was not responsible for the dream, even though in the dream I was responsible for the terrifying elements.

My husband came home to find me nearly catatonic, mentally at least. I tried to tell him about the dream, feeling silly to have been found so affected by "just a dream." The attempt at retelling unleashed a well of tears so deep that I couldn't finish. No, I told him, in whom I confide just about everything. I couldn't even tell him.

But the part I did manage to get out, in the retelling, put me right back into the terrifying feelings of the dream, felt again, and sent me into another crying jag.

But sh*t. I had to shower. I had work to do, clients to meet. The shower, I hoped, would clear my head and let me get past the tears. But no, more tears during and after the shower. My towel dried more tears than bathwater.

The drive into the office did help, finally. And focusing on other people's real life problems helped too.

In the evening my husband and I took a walk. He asked about the dream. I was able to tell it all. And then I felt relief. Someone else knows the script that ran undirected through my head.
"Oh god!" He said. Yeah. It was like that.

I met with friends later but couldn't tell them about the dream. Wouldn't. I don't want to be judged, or figured out, or any other dimestore interpretation thrown my way. I don't want my terrifying, imagined ordeal to be retold.

Dreams do not represent us. They do not tell a story of what we want most deeply but cannot admit. Or not always. Sometimes they tell a story of what we most deeply fear, what we worry about for ourselves and our loved ones. And as any mother knows, we worry a lot.

And I have been worried much, lately. Life has thrown a curve ball that millions before us have faced, many have triumphed brilliantly, but too many have fallen under the staggering burden.

And while this dream only touched briefly and indirectly on the actual theme of my worry, the finality represented the loss that I fear.

Dreams, I believe, are the playground of the mind. The cat is away so the mice can play. The CEO is sleeping so the mind can take it's memories, experiences, and feelings and turn them into a story of it's own creation. Make crazy stories. Scary stories. Fretful stories. Hopeful stories. Sometimes the story holds value and meaning. Sometimes it's just a kalaidoscope of randomness.

Some dreams motivate us to take action. This one did. First I looked at the most dominant feelings in my dream: Uncertainty, fear, resignation, regret, grief. I looked hard at the uncertainty. How do I face this particular problem? What can I do? I decided I need to do something, to take action. To move past the passivity and into proactivity.

I reached out farther than I have in the past and have taken steps in a direction contemplated for some time.

Those steps? So far so good. My fears have settled down. Hope has taken up a larger space. Maybe some future dream will guide me toward the next step.

How about you, reader? Have you had a dream that motivated you into action?

Image, The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau, found here