Juggling (#atozchallenge 2013)

 

Me juggling

       Having been raised in a family that performed as professional jugglers and spending a good portion of my adult life working as a professional juggler on my own, it only makes sense that I would often dream of juggling and being in the circumstance of getting ready to perform or being onstage.

        My mother often tells me that she will dream that she and my father are doing their juggling act and she is having difficulty holding onto the juggling props, dropping them frequently.   She tells of when my father was in his last days at the hospital and under the influence of morphine.  One night, she told us, he awoke and thought it was time to go onstage to do their juggling act.

         I rarely engage in actual juggling in my dreams, but I frequently dream that I am supposed to be going on stage to perform a juggling act and I am not prepared.  Sometimes I can't find my props or locate the costume I am supposed to wear.  Often I just get sidetracked by other things that are going on around me.  I may start doing something else or forget exactly what I am supposed to do.  Frequently I can see an audience and realize they are distracted and starting to leave.

        These dreams are of the standard fear of not being prepared or feeling that I am not prepared for something I am supposed to do in waking life.   This is just another variation of the dream of unpreparedness.  I have a fear sometimes in waking life that I am not fully ready to do certain things when I have been scheduled to do them and this fear is often manifested in dreams such as my juggling dreams.

       Have you ever dreamed of juggling or jugglers?   Do you have dreams where you are supposed to do something but not prepared?    Do you ever dream about being at work and not being able to do your job properly?

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Inclusion (#atozchallenge 2013)

dreams and wishes. 62/365 (Photo credit: nicole.pierce.photography ♥)

           There are some dreams that I have about people who welcome me into their group or their lives.  Though I may be a stranger in most of these cases, these people warmly include me as a part of what they are doing and in the dream I feel accepted and liked.  Sometimes the people might be people from my past with whom I was never close or they might be people with whom I am familiar in my waking life but with whom I am not closely associated.

           Here are a few examples of dreams of inclusion:

1. I am accepted on terms of friendship or romance with a person with whom I don't have this relationship in waking life.
2. I am looked upon as one with special knowledge and brought on as an important employee or associate.
3. I am seen as a respected individual and held in high regard by some group or organization that I would like to join.
4. I become part of some mission or group effort and seen as an integral part or desirable component by the others in the group.
5. I am embraced lovingly by people I don't know but they seem to know something about me.
6. I am invited to be with others and participate in their lives or activities because they like me. 

          Dreams of inclusion most likely represent a wish or desire for an actual circumstance of waking life such as getting a job or some position of relevance.   If they involve friendship or romance these dreams could reflect on past memories, interpretations of certain recent events, or wishful thinking for things I would like to see happen in the future.   Other symbology of these types of dreams might also have something to do with my assessment of who I am and where I am in my life, a certain envious displacement of self into circumstances I have seen around me, or how I feel about my acceptance by certain people in my life who in the dream are represented by strangers.

           Whenever I have a dream about inclusion I feel warm and confident in the dream and this feeling will carry on into wakefulness.  Upon waking from this type of dream I will feel optimistic, happy, and ready to face the day.   Dreams of inclusion are very positive dreams to have.

            Have you had dreams of inclusion that you can recall?   In these dreams, who has included you as a part of themselves or their group?    Would you say your dreams tend to be more often about inclusion or exclusion?

    

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Dreams That Make Us Tired

dream... (Photo credit: Norma Desmond)

        IN the comment section of my previous post, Eve said:

 I've had dreams that seem to last for hours and hours...have you ever had a dream where you're running from something, or someone..it seems to last all night long, and when you wake up you're actually tired because you've been 'running' all night? 

      Thinking back on my own dreams I don't recall many times where I woke up tired after a dream where I was running from something--in fact, maybe never.  However, many times I have awakened from dream sleep feeling very worn out much as though I had spent a long hard day at work.  There was probably a good reason I felt this way when I woke up--I was dreaming of work.   

       In recent months I have been having an especially large number of dreams about work.   These dreams typically involve stress caused by not being on schedule or feeling pressured by upper management.  In some  of these dreams I may be back traveling with a road show as I did during the 1980's.  At times I am lost or delayed by peculiar events.   I realize that I will be late for the show and an audience will be waiting.  My tension is increased by confusion, indecisiveness, and forgetfulness.  I become frustrated because I am unsure of what to do or how to do things.

      In other dreams I am working in a scenario similar to the warehouse where I was manager in my last job.  There are things I can't remember--processes, products, product locations, customers, and even workers who I manage.  I attempt to achieve tasks that were once familiar to me, but now are things I no longer understand.   I am concerned about my job performance and fear repercussions from the company owners.  Losing my job becomes a burdensome worry in the dream.

      My interpretation relates these dreams mostly to my state of unemployment which I have been in for four years now.  During the first two years I collected unemployment and looked diligently for a job without success.  After the unemployment benefits ran out I gradually spent less effort looking for work and trying to consider other ways to make money.  I will begin collecting social security in March.  I still hope to find a good source of income, but if I don't then I suppose I can consider myself officially retired.

      The long period of joblessness would account for my sense of uncertainty if I were to rejoin the workforce.  Since my previous jobs were of such long duration, I use them as a reference point and model for any new job situation in which I might find myself.  In my dreams I return to the jobs that I have known in the past, but having been away leaves me with a sense of insecurity.  This sense of  insecurity and my own having forgotten what my jobs may have entailed leads to anxiety, apprehension, doubt, and stress.   A night filled with these encumbrances causes fretful sleep and mental turmoil which wearies me and causes me to wake up tired.

       Have you experienced similar dream sleep problems?   Do you ever awaken in the morning feeling tired as though you hadn't slept?   What do you think causes you to wake up tired?

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A Respite Despite the Dreaming

"The Dream" by Edouard Detaille. Soldiers dreaming about glory. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

        It's A to Z Challenge Reflections week in case anyone is not yet aware.  If you have anything to say about the April Challenge, put up your post before Saturday night and then add the link to that post on the list which can be found at the A to Z Blog.   We want to know what you think about the Challenge.  Since my focus is on the A to Z Reflections posts this week, my entry here today will be themed as such.

        My sleep dreams have been relegated to the back of my mind of late.  With the Challenge and the Reflections and all of the related catching up with things, I have dreamed during sleep.  I remember the dreams--sometimes vividly.  Then I stop thinking of them and busy myself with other things until the dreams are completely forgotten.  It's been like this for a month and a half now.  I've been too busy to bother with dreams--waking or sleeping.

        What I have noticed about what I do remember about my dreams is that they mostly were related to blogging.  A few times I even awoke from dreams about blogging to go to my computer and check my blog--to see if my daily offering had posted yet, to check if I had gotten any new comments, or to begin another blog post that I had thought of while dreaming.

          Have you ever been so focused on something that you thought about it when you were awake and asleep?   Do you often dream about work or things you are responsible for getting done?    How often are your dreams pure escapism?

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