I love my subconscious! We’ve gotten so much closer these past few years and yet, I can never seem to catch up with that rascal-y rabbit. I listen to my gut now, which is a form of undressing my subconscious, but the best part is that my dreams are becoming so much more obvious!

I used to have obscure repeating dreams about scary Sesame Street, dreams which could mean many things, and came back several times a year to haunt me, taunting me as if to say, “You just don’t get it, do you?”

But recently my obscure dreams have turned a corner and they are not even trying to hide their meaning. It’s almost rude:

• A dream (a week before my last divorce court date) where I am in divorce court preceeding and my ex has a team of young, sexy sleek lawyers like on some TV show and the judge allows them to screen a 15 minute promotional video of how my ex is a saint. Not even remotely hiding my greatest, deepest fears.
• A dream where the country is at war and I am kidnapped and made to press a big red button. Not even attempting to conceal my fear of the power of my own anger.
• Dreams weeks and days before a live performance, in which I show up with no shoes, inappropriately dressed and having forgotten the song I am meant to sing completely, and forced to go on stage anyway. I mean, I’m just glad my subconscious didn’t send me to school with no clothes on. At least my mind is original, right?
• Recently, dreams about my family- some happy, even funny, and some angry- all with a subtext of longing and yearning for us all to be together again, knowing that it means taking the good with the bad.
• As for my upcoming trip, the long, secluded, no-cell-phone-or-laptop trip to Thailand I promised myself of the day I left my ex and many, many days since, I booked my ticket. So now, my subconscious has begun with its first of what will probably be many dreams of my getting lost, and sleeping in someones living room with strangers, in an uncomfortable box. I am afraid that in traveling alone I will get myself so lost or stranded that I will have to sleep in a box with strangers- nice self-confidence, self!

So what can I take from these strong, emotional, vivid dreams which my generous mind allows me to remember? Well, for starters, I’m not sure my subconscious thinks much of my ability to deduce the message from a more complicated dream-story-line. Am I insulting my own intelligence?

Secondly, maybe I’m getting closer to the core. Maybe when our dreams become more obvious and our gut voice gets louder, it means we are really learning who we are. The other day, I was thinking, trying to rationalize or make sense of the last three years of my life- having gotten married and divorced to a man I can truly say I barely knew. I really believe that I needed that experience. If tomorrow I meet Doc with the Delorean and he offers me a trip Back, I do not think I would go back and tell myself not to get married. I might go back and make sure I hid my diamond ring better and took more of my stuff- but stuff is just stuff. The last few years have been hard, and at some low points, I was truly stuck, alone, in a living nightmare. But I wouldn’t change it- it made me stronger, I know who I am, I know what I can take, and I know that I come back from it all. My sense of perspective has been altered forever, and maybe when we have these vivid dreams- some scary, some awesome- it’s because uncle subconscious knows we can take it and it’s the stuff we need to know we feel, even if we can only feel it in dreams.

For your subconscious and conscious enjoyment, Weezer’s Only in Dreams from the amazing Blue Album