Monday, January 12, 2009

Dream Journals

Last week I started keeping a dream journal as versus a personal journal. It's a journal in which I log my dreams from the previous night's sleep. My younger daughter suggested it because she claims I have very unusual dreams and she thinks I can get some good story ideas from it. Hopefully she's right. Unfortunately, I don't always remember my dreams in much detail and I'm not good at interpreting them. At least not yet. So far, each dream has been unique, unlike my daughter and my mom who claim to have a recurring dream. Some of my dreams are similar to things going on in my life or a TV show I watched that day. However, others seem to have no connection to anything whatsoever. For instance, the first dream I logged was that a bunch of people I didn't know went into a big amusement park with real T-Rex's. The people stayed on a big rectangular walking track while the T-Rex's snatched them up at random intervals and ate them. The people didn't try to avoid them too much as it was some sorority thing. I don't recall that I was eaten, but I did awake during that dream so maybe I would have been had it kept going. I have no earthly clue what that dream meant. Later that same night, I dreamed about two people I know, one a critique partner I've met in real life and the other a lady in my department at my day job. We were riding on some stand up motorized scooter and we kept losing our shoes and finding ourselves either barefoot or wearing a pair of white shoes none of us recognized. Again, I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. The following night, I dreamed I was looking for my husband late at night. I thought he was across town in a really bad part of town and I was scared to walk those streets. So I hopped a city bus to get across town. However, one of the other passengers wanted to be let off on top of a mountain of garbage. So the bus drove on top of the garbage and let him out. But then the bus started sliding down the hill of garbage. My daughter thinks this dream means I'm suspicious of her dad but that my suspicions are unfounded. I'm not sure on either count. Maybe it means I'm full of garbage? LOL Last night I dreamed about having to find a new place to live and that we couldn't afford anything but in a bad part of town in an awful and scary tenement building. I didn't recognize which town. But after my gut reaction of hating it and being scared, I started to find things I liked about the new neighborhood. My really good friend Jo was in another apartment in the building and I met other really nice people there I started to bond with. Then I ventured further into the old, formerly scary part of town and I found really neat things. I happened upon the library that had a lot of great programs and I stayed there till closing. Again, the same coworker from my day job was at the library volunteering and having a grand old time. It was actually a pretty uplifting dream in the end and I didn't want to wake up. I have no idea why this same coworker has shown up twice in my dreams within the same week now. None of the other people from my department have, at least not to my recollection. Whereas I like this person a lot, we're not best friends or even lunch buddies like some of the others. I don't dislike her. So I'm stumped why her so often? Why not the others? So far, I don't think I see any wonderful story ideas in my dreams, but I'll keep at it. I think this journal is turning out better than my other daily journals for interest factor. And I do relate them to daily events and past things in my life a bit so it'll probably end up being a good genealogical tool for my descendants. Of course they'll probably think I'm nuts after reading my goofy dreams. Then again, what will they think of my mom's recurring dream? She dreamed she was part of the fated Donner Pass Party in the 1800s US, the one where they got snowed in with insufficient food to last the winter so they cannibalized one another to survive. A few made it out alive. Anyway, it freaked her out so badly, she hopped on a plane and flew over the Donner Pass instead of driving through it with my step father when they went out to California for my wedding back in 1980. She couldn't bear to "go through it again". Can you imagine having a dream about cannibalization over and over? <> Sooooooo, do you dream a lot? Do you have recurring dreams or themes in the dreams? Or are you like me and have a lot of unique, weird dreams? Do you interpret your dreams? That's my next project, to see if I can learn to do that. Maybe I can be another Joseph. Why do women like to read erotic romance? One of my loops is discussing this topic this week. Personally, I'm an emotion junkie - romantic emotions, that is. I want to feel as if I'm falling in love and maybe I'm oversexed, but I like those feelings, too. When I was a kid reading Harlequins and Silhouettes, I used to cheat and read that back of the book to make sure there was a happy ending which of course there always was. I also dog-eared the pages where the hot sex was so I could re-read those parts. I know some women profess sex is dirty, that it should be secret and hidden behind the closed bedroom door. Some of those same women have 8 kids. Hmmmm. That makes me think they're not so against sex. I'm sure others are like me and enjoy sex - both the real deal and the emotions it evokes. I'm sure I have at least one kid as a result of getting hot from reading a fictional sexy romance. For some reason, we don't want our mothers, grandmothers, and aunts to read our erotic stuff - at least not most of us. For some odd reason, we don't like to think of them as sexual creatures but obviously they were at least once if we're here - well, maybe not the aunts, but usually. I was in a workshop listening to a famous author a few years ago who is hilarious in person as well as in writing. Maybe more so in person. Anyway, she had me laughing so hard when she told this confession. She had told us that her mother professed to be shocked (I don't recall exact words) about her erotic romance scenes, but then she'd catch her sneaking to read them. She then told us that she was afraid her mother would get so hot she'd jump her father and she'd wind up with a new baby brother. It happens. That's life. :) If you like to read them, why? What are your reasons? Do you mind if other people know you like them? I imagine a lot of women like to read them but don't want other people to know. That's one reason they're so hot in e-book format. No one else gets to see a cover with naked, entangled bodies - a dead give away. Try explaining that one to your pastor or Bertha-better-than-thou if they see you reading it at Borders. You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

9 comments:

barbara huffert said...

I tend to have screaming nightmares with recurring killers. If I ever pass the latest guy on the street I'll probably die on the spot. Oh, on the bright side I used a bunch of my dreams in a book and ever since writing it I haven't had those particular ones again.

Kati said...

*chuckle* Hey Ashley!! Interesting about the dreams. I usually have odd, vibrant dreams as well. Once or twice they've actually come true (one scared me sh**less when I realized after the fact that it had come true, it was about my pregnancy with my daughter).

Anyway, re: reading erotic romance. I like sex. Sometimes I like it more than others. I like books. Books with erotic sex scenes are easier to indulge in, during an odd moment of the day, than is the actual act. *grin* And, sometimes I know I'm in a horny mood, but for whatever reason cannot indulge in a more physical expression of that mood, so the romance novel kinda fills in for the real thing. Or, it gets me in the mood for the real thing, if I just haven't been amped to go lately. *chuckle*

(Also RE: children being freaked by the thought of their parents having sex, my daughter just experienced menarche and is freaking over the thought of being a menstruating woman. Unfortunately she seems to think that being a girl/woman is discusting, that our bodies are discusting, and that menstruation and childbearing is discusting. That's REALLY not going over too well with ME right now! I don't care for the fact that my daughter has told me to my face today that since I am a woman, and a menstruating one at that, that I and my body are discusting. [NO idea where she got this idea from! It wasn't ME!] Just kinda thought it was ironic that you brought it up in your post here today, children being freaked by the thought of their woman relatives having sex, or being sexual beings, even KNOWING that this must be true for that child to even be on the earth.)

Sandra Cox said...

I think keeping a journal is an excellent idea. Let me know if you get them all figured out:)

Regina Carlysle said...

I like the dream journal idea, too. Sounds like yours is pretty interesting. Last night I dreamed of two women I'd never seen before. One blonde and one brunette and they were laying in lawn chairs finding their faces in the clouds. Weird.

Anonymous said...

I'm not keeping a journal of dreams but of something even more bizarre.

I read a lot in the evening with the television on. Last year, I noticed I would sometimes read a word in my book and someone on the television would say it at the same time. These were not common words like "and" or "the" but unusual ones.

My crit partner said I should keep a journal of when this occurs. So I started one a few weeks ago. I write down the time and date the incident occurs, what's on television and what I am reading.

So far this month I have (in order of occurence) "infuriated" "Ohio" "money." Spooky. I'm now wondering if it's my late husband sending me messages from "the other side!"

Nicole McCaffrey said...

I dream a lot, and a lot of times they're strange and involve co-workers or friends I haven't seen in years. But I did manage to get a couple of books out of my dreams, LOL.

I love to read hot love scenes and I don't' mind if my mom reads them. She introduced me to romance novels, after all, so she knows what they're all about. Having the uptight in-laws read them, however, would be another story, LOL.

My reasons for reading them, I guess, are the same as anyone else's--I like sex! LOL.

BTW, stop by my blog when you have a chance. I've tagged you!

Nic

EmilyBryan said...

I had a truly bizarre dream this week. I dreamed I was washing Prince William's hair. He was a very nice young man, extremely polite. And I all I could think as I suds up his soapy locks was how many tweeners (and twenty-somethings) on both sides of the pond would kill to trade places with me!

LOL!I have no idea what to make of that dream. File it under random!

I'm looking forward to guesting here on the 21st, Ashley. TTYS!
Emily
www.emilybryan.com

Debby said...

I do not remember my dreams very often. Harry Potter kept a dream journal in one of the books.

Unknown said...

What a great response! Thanks all.

Joanna, I have noticed at work that names in a day will often repeat. Usually first names but sometimes last names and sometimes the names can be either. If I get one Karen in the morning for instance, I'll have several more for the day. We have a data base of more than 4 million people so it strikes me as bizarre. It's not always common names like Karen, either. That was just an example. I didn't really think of it as spooky, just odd.

I've noticed since keeping the dream journal, people at my day job are popping up a lot. Not just people in my department who are my second family, whom I'm with all day long, but people from other departments I hardly know. And they're doing things that seem totally out of character for what little I know of them. So far, I have no clue why.

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