Dreams

How many of you dream about work? Everyone, right? When I was teaching I practically couldn’t sleep the night before the first day of school, a big observation, or parent conferences. And when I finally did fall off to sleep it wasn’t the peaceful, refreshing, life-affirming sleep of the innocent. No, it was terrible nightmares of showing up naked, or being the only one in the room and wondering where everyone else was, or seeing everyone else was completely Pinterest prepared with color-coded folders and eye-catching charts while I was knee deep in plain cardboard boxes.

Well this is my third year of retirement and I can honestly say those dreams are finally starting to fade, although I still have the occasional dream of a coworker showing up in some odd non-work related situation or the one where I wake up looking for something. But what hasn’t changed is the fact that I do dream about work.

Lately, I’ve been dreaming about writing related things, sort of. I’ve actually dreamed that I was typing my dream onto a computer screen. I’ve met authors in line at the coffee shop, pruning roses, and cleaning the oven. I’ve gotten lost driving to a critique meeting in the middle of the sea. I’ve even returned my library books and shopped for journals while flying. Oh, yeah, and last night I woke up looking for my chalk… I guess some things never change.

So what is it about weird dreams? Are they like Scrooge said, a “bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato”? Or as Freud said, “most profound when they seem the most crazy”?

We may never know, but for now, I’m glad that my dreams are more reflective (so to speak) of my new work and what I want to do when I wake up.