To sleep, perchance to dream

Well, I can't sleep. I am tired, but my mind won' t stop racing. Plus I have bug bites that are itchy, plus the softball field in our back yard is still lit up at midnight. Not that sleep would be restful--I can't sleep for dreaming, lately. My dreams are so vivid that I have a hard time forgetting them, and they are either so common-place that I don't know if they are real when I wake up, or they are so scary or frustrating that I can't escape them and I am exhausted in the morning. Here are some of the more recent ones:

1. The other night I dreamed that I was out jogging and it was too foggy, so I waited at a friend's house near Ft. Bliss so that W and I could just drive home together. This friend, Stu Forbes, (who lives in New York...) kept letting me use the phone to call W but he wouldn't pick up. Finally, he called back and the answering machine got it and he said that Stu needed to stall for him because he was with another girl. Then, when he came to get me he was so mean to me and while he was mean to me I kept crying and asking him why. I have had dreams where W is cheating on me (most notably when he was with my sister while they were skydiving) and usually I wake up irritated and make him pay for it throughout the week. This time I woke up crying and all hunched over. I was terrified. I feel like I can completely feel the pain even now. I couldn't go back to sleep for a long time.

2. The Jooj is a year old and is saying her first word and I am so proud of her and we are in my living room. She has a little flower in her dark hair. I can't wait to call Jenny E. (This was one where I couldn't remember if it was real for a while after)

3. I am auditioning for commercials in Salt Lake, even though I am not good enough or pretty enough to be on tv. ( This is not a put-down, it is part of the dream.) People keep turning me down, but I finally get a job because I talk my way into the casting director's heart with my intimate knowledge of "That's So Raven." Turns out that I am holding the boom while my friend, Jamie, gets the talking part, but I am just fine with that.

4. This one is a recurring dream--about three times a year: The episode of The Brady Bunch where Davy Jones comes to take Marcia to the dance--except it is me instead of Marcia. Sometimes it is Davy Jones, sometimes it is The Beastie Boys, sometimes it is Bon Jovi. Sometimes it is a different Brady episode, and The Beastie Boys are the Brady Boys and they are my brothers. In that one we are usually building the house of cards.

5. This is also a recurring one--I have had this dream since I was about 9 or 10, but I am having it a lot more, lately: My family and I are going to Split Pea Anderson's outside of Solvang, CA. Insted of following my family to the left and being seated I go to the bathroom on the right and find a stairway. I go down and am sudddenly in a cave. I walk in and it is this crazy toy land with all of these puppets and dolls and things. I buy some fireworks and some candy and then I go into another room and I am in a Hans Christian Andersen theme park where the rides are kind of Like Alice in Wonderland and Small World at Disneyland. Sometimes I go over to the giant statue by this really blue water overlooking Tom Sawyer's Island and I go into a glass blowing museum where I learn to make glass statues. If I do really well I get elected to be the president.

6. I am in my grandparent's old house in California and am in their bathroom. I am trying to take a shower, but people keep coming in. I go to my aunt's bathroom, but people keep coming in. Finally I go into her room and climb out onto the roof so that I can be alone. (This one left me really tired in the morning--it was just so frustrating!)

7. I am at a picnic with my entire family, and they are all looking at me and asking me to do a million different things. All that I want to do is sit down and eat some pie, but everyone keeps yelling at me and blaming everything on me. I know that it is not my fault, but they won't stop yelling, so I go try to fix everything, but I just can't please anyone. I woke up so frustrated from this one.

8. I am at a party and I meet an old boyfriend from High School and he treats me incredibly well and I fall in love with him. But I am still married to W, and I am not going to cheat on him. But, for some reason, the prophet has said that it is ok to bend the rules because W is in a coma. I fell guilty, but this boyfriend keeps comvincing me that I am going to be fine. Then W wakes up from his coma and I have to go be married to him again. I feel really lousy, because I can't be happy in either situation. (This one can probably be blamed on reading those dumb Anita Stansfield novels)

I would love to hear any interpretations about these, because they are so off base from my life. My marriage is fantastic, my family loves me, and I live far enough away from the ones who are demanding to successfully ignore them, and I have no desire to be on tv (maybe a little desire...). Maybe if my mind would stop working so hard to be outlandish I could get some sleep!