Taking Charge of Your Nightmares

When I was in college, my Intro to Pysch prof made us keep dream journals because he wanted us to learn to control our dreams. (Yes, we all thought he was certifiable. And sadly he was tenured and spent most of his time talking about Native American dream catchers and not Freud et al.) Despite the 500 of us diligently, or not so diligently, writing down our dreams, none of us learned to control them.

It’s a cool idea though. I’d especially like to control my nightmares. When I have them, I wake up drenched in sweat. And often when I fall back to sleep I end up in the same nightmare. I did learn to “finish” my nightmares when I woke up and that usually keeps me from going back into the nightmare. So if I was being pursued and my legs were frozen and I couldn’t move or scream, I finish the dream by being able to run/scream/shoot/etc. I’m not too creative at 2am. But I’m considering adding a bullwhip and scythe-sword to my post-dream arsenal.

Lately, I’ve been having these semi-nightmares. Not really scary, but disconcerting. First, I’d get tied up and thrown into a tiny box—I had about four nights of these. Thankfully, I’m not claustrophobic, but getting thrown into an igloo cooler was a bit much. The next night, I had a dream that the stalker was back. (If you’ve been reading my blog for a long time, you know that I had a stalker in college—back before anti-stalking laws—who made my life and that of a couple of my friends a horror.) At any rate, in the dream I captured the stalker!! And I slapped him across the face.

I haven’t learned to control my dreams and I still think my prof was seriously crazed, but getting “closure” sure felt good. Next up, the evil shadowy guy that stuffed me in a box. I’ve got a taser and handcuffs waiting for him.

Mr. I

Ever since Calvin left, I’ve been getting phone calls. You know the kind, there’s a person on the line, but they don’t say anything, they just listen. Normally, I just hang up. But this morning, the Idiot (known in our house as Mr. I) woke me up very early. And, I am not happy.

I could be “freaked” and nervous. But I’ve been down this road before, in a much, much worse form and before there were anti-stalking laws. Now it’s an annoyance—my life is too busy for these shenanigans. So, this morning I talked to the kids about it because I want to keep track of how many of these calls we’re getting in a day. Before I spoke to the kids, I thought “Oh, I have to be careful; I don’t want to scare them.” Clearly, I hadn’t had my morning coffee yet. Teenage boys aren’t freaked out by a stalker. They think it’s uber-cool. They were giddy. After all, they have testosterone, they’re proficient in steel-based self-protection, and the have Jez—the bullet you can re-call.

Now the boys are planning for the next phone call. I’m sure I won’t be able to get to the phone today at all. Matt’s plan is to blow our bo’sun’s whistle into the phone. Jacob’s plan is to laugh and comment on how Jezebel delights to eat human flesh. And Luke’s plan is to curse the caller. Of course, Luke’s idea of cursing is to call someone “The Son of an Incontinent Camel.” Yes, he’s been reading too much Elizabeth Peters.

So, dear stalking phone caller, please don’t forget to call—my boys will be terribly disappointed if you don’t.