Dreams

I cannot recall particular dream patterns I’ve had over the years but I think my recollection of dreams has been pretty varied throughout the years. I often go through a few days in a row where I recall many dreams then I don’t for a while.  I’ve noticed a very specific trend in the last few months. I’ve been waking almost daily from very vivid dreams. I suppose that I just happen to be waking up within the same stage of sleep all the time. It’s just odd to me because I’ve never had this happen so consistently. Another aspect of these vivid dreams is that I can feel and recall them upon waking, but within a very short time frame, it’s gone from memory. What I do recall of the dreams is more of the mood and feelings involved. I know when the dream has been an interesting one and when it has been disturbing or pleasant, but other details seem to vanish within minutes of waking.

This morning, I actually did recall my dream, or at least the tail of it. I know that I was initially looking out of a window from either an apartment, hotel or some similar building onto the ocean. At first I saw a number of ships, all lined up. I can’t really recall the details but they seemed to be lined up so I guess it was a harbor. I don’t know what happened for the next part of the dream but later I was sitting or standing next to the same window  with another woman (I don’t know who it was though) and a rather large airplane passed immediately by this window such that the wing was almost touching the building. One of us remarked on how very close to us it was. I think it was supposed to be flying upwards but seemed to falter and go towards the water. Almost immediately afterwards, the dream changed so that there was a swell of water, which I guess must have been much like a tsunami wave. I seemed to suddenly be outside and running back to this building or somewhere else because the water is rushing towards us (don’t know who us is though) and we want to get to higher ground. If seemed like we were running for some time… And there was some thought about getting to children just afterwards but then I woke up and I don’t know anything about that at all. I think the plane sort of disappeared as the “wave” appeared. That one was definitely a disturbing one.

I’ve also had a variation on the same dream over many years. I supposed I could call it a recurring dream although it changes each time.  I am always back at my elementary school, not as the child that attended the school but as an older me, who is going back to visit. I don’t think the specific details of what happens are particularly the same. But the idea that I have gone back to see the school is the same and it’s always that I’m visiting from afar. Of course, the school looks nothing like it did when I was there. In fact, it always looks far better and more modern (but different each time). Oh, and it always seems to be at night, as though it’s a special night for visitors or perhaps it’s a PTA night or something. We moved away when I was eleven and I have never been back to the school although I had been to our old neighborhood as late as six or seven years afterwards. I think maybe the first dream would have been during my teens and it recurred right through my twenties and thirties at least a few times a year. But I don’t recall having this dream in a few years, effectively since I’ve hit my forties. So either it has stopped recurring or I’m not having vivid recollections of it any longer.