Dreams Are Taking Over My Real Life

LAST night I had the most vivid dream: I was with a guy and enjoying myself, laughing and having a good time. I was back in high school, I think, because there was my Latin teacher! She was very disapproving, thinking perhaps it was time to get back to work in school. Hit the books. Conjugate verbs. All that kind of stuff.
But looking at the guy - can't really say who he was* - I suddenly realized I was in love. Deep, true love. I was thinking in the back of my mind about how I was going to break this to whoever I was currently dating - or married to - but I had such a good feeling. It's not often you get back a memory so vividly and get to experience once again the actual brain euphoria falling in love brings.
It affected me even through my morning as I worked away in my office. Every once in a while, I would think about how good I felt and start thinking about my dream and how I was in love - wait, that's a dream - yet it seemed almost more real than my actual life.
Almost all my dreams in recent months have seem so vivid and they've taken up a good share of thinking time as I turn them to and fro in my mind.
In one dream I got to hug my grandmother again. In another I fall in love. I can't recall some of the others, and I'm not saying I'm turning into a mental case and not able to separate real life from dream life. It's just that they are so intense - and mostly pleasurable.

Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. - W.B.Yeats

Sweet dreams - femminismo
*p.s. I do know, but I will not tell.
p.p.s. The photo is of Rupert Brooke, a war poet, and the image is from the Google collection.

The Other Side

DOESN'T dream time seem like that? The "Other Side"?
A few nights ago I struggled with a man who was in my house and I kept trying to tell everyone that he meant me harm. "They" said he seemed harmless. He said, "All right, I'll leave now."
But I knew he didn't mean it and as soon as the other person was gone he was attacking me again.
I screamed. I shouted. I hit and tore. I ran from the house - along with someone else (?) - and jumped through uneven fields full of blackberry vines. I didn't mind the running or the tears from brambles. I just wanted to get away.
Then I dreamed "they" were trying to kill us all. I asked, "Isn't there an alternative?"
"He," abruptly dropping his weapon and evil persona, said, "Well, yes, I guess there is." Turns out it involved something akin to selling my soul. However, I didn't get killed, so I guess I took this alternative.
If you gave up your soul there were only two things you could not do: You could not wear the "signs of the Zodiac" and you could not drink alcohol.
In my dream I saw a man lying "dead" because he was wearing a sign. Then I absentmindedly took a sip of wine. Oh no! Alcohol! I waited for the black smoke to pour out of me, because that's what happens when you drink alcohol with no soul. (where does this stuff come from?)
A better dream was last night's trip to The Other Side, when everyone (well, almost) wanted to kiss me on the cheek because I was "so cute." I must have been regressing to when I was about 5 years old.
No, no! Don't try and flatter me by saying, "What do you mean, when you were 5 years old?!" (Oh, OK. Go ahead.)
The Mister did celebrate his birthday, along with my sister, Miss Murphy. Aren't they cute? And this is proof!
On Valentine's Day the Mister and I took a drive through the country and you could see the creeks were swollen and the buds on the trees are ready to burst. The beavers on one creek had taken a tree down and skinned all the bark off it. The little cabin shown by the creek had ferns growing all over the roof. It was behind a large bush of bamboo and in the summer must be quite the secluded hideout. It is always cool in this spot, we heard from neighbors. Not much sun at all, but lots and lots of rich green moss.
There were chickens rooting around in the mud under netting to protect them from hawks. Chicken hawks.
The day was lovely and of course over too soon. But I did get an orchid from my sweetheart for Valentine's Day, so I was pleased - femminismo
p.s. The picture at the top of the post is from Life magazine images hosted by Google. It shows a father in West Germany showing his son the view on the other side in 1961. They were lucky to be looking over and not living a scary nightmare on the other side.

Tea Party With Candace

LO, across these many American miles, I travel to be with my Athens, Ga., correspondent, Candace.
Here's mud in yer eye, Candace, my pal. Tea for two and such as that.
Glad to participate. My black Stetson hat has a copper-colored ribbon, an oak leaf with an oak ball growing on it (well, not anymore, but it's stuck there into eternity) and a black tanager feather with an orange stripe. (I'm guessing it was a tanager. I'm not a birder, as such.)
The orange glow can only mean Halloween spirits are calling, like the woman in my dream last night that had me rising from my pillow in answer to her calling my name. She wanted me to wake up and, I think, go with her. When I realized I was still in bed and her skirts turned into being my curtains, my head fell back to the pillow and I slept through the rest of the night.
Fascinating dream, but she didn't say anything witty or memorable. She did call my name though - femminismo (not that name - my *real* name)
p.s. I'm going to a play tonight! Exciting, isn't it?

Hallelujah! Violets are here.

I WANT YOU TO KNOW that violets are absolutely my favorite flower.
My mother isn't here to remember this and save a handful of the delightful purple flowers for me, and sometimes the Mister doesn't always remember, so I'm telling all my friends out there: Violets are my favorite. And this year they are blooming in abundance in my very own yard
There are many ways we feel "real" - it's different for everyone - and sometimes, as life goes by, we lose those people who remember us the best. When I lost my mother, I lost someone who remembered far more about me than even I could know.
WARNING: The following contains a crazy dream sequence - Last night I had one of those times when I awoke and couldn't get back to sleep. I felt my brain gear up to race through one crazy thought after another. I woke up because of a dream. I was sitting in a theater with the Mister on my left and two talkative women on his left. It was a Swedish play - Ibsen or Inge - and the women next to us kept talking almost as loud as the actors.
I turned to my left and said, "Shut up, and I'm not kidding!" I said it loudly. They were quite perturbed I was so rude. Can you believe it?
Then, to my right, farther in the back of the audience, a man started explaining to everyone around him that something one of the characters just said was a great example of the Swedish attempt to explore the ... what? I don't know; the existential predicament of humor in Swedish culture. I don't know what he was talking about. I just muttered, "For crying out loud!"
There was an intermission then and the two women adjusted their seating to get farther away from me. The Mister and I went on stage to explore the setting and found a door outside and then ... well, you know how dreams go. We were on to some other setting. (End of Dream Sequence)
Well, I don't believe I came online just to post my weird dreams and interrupted sleeping patterns. No. I guess I just want you to thank someone for remembering your favorite flower, or food or song. Thank them for taking time to remember the special person you are.
And I have good news about my friend Mike. I posted a "prayer page" in my journal for him not so long ago. I talked to him today and, after three weeks in the hospital, he is almost good enough to get set free. This is very good news today! Hope you are all healthy out there. I've had over 1,000 visitors now on this blog. Leave a comment. Thanks, femminismo