Recurrences

Well, wouldn’t you know it, but last night I had my recurring dream again. Must’ve been that lucid dreaming post yesterday still on my mind that done did it. In it, I said that I’d blog about the recurring dream later on, which means it goes on a blog topic list some twenty items long and growing, and maybe I’d get to it in a month or two. So, since it’s fresh in my mind, here it is.

It’s kind of a mild nightmare. In my recurring dream, I die. Not really, though. I’m part of a movie, a castmember, and we’re acting out scenes. And the scene in my dream is one in which the character I’m playing gets killed. The nightmarish part about it is that the movie is always different. Sometimes I’m shot with bullets, or stabbed, or eaten by some terrifying monster. Last night it was those little facehugger nasties from the Alien movies.

Now, I know that I’m not really going to die. Yes, there might be some pain and there will definitely be some discomfort, but I’m not really going to die. It’s just a movie, see? A very realistic one, a highly convincing one, but a movie nonetheless. So last night, probably around 3 or 4 am real time, my eyelids are twitching and my heart rate is racing as my ethereal self is wandering from room to room in the mazelike mansion, trying to avoid those facehuggers and the humans that might have been implanted with aliens. A couple of my companions did die, in front of me, and I had some close scrapes, but I woke up, thanks to a full bladder, still breathing and in one piece.

What does it all mean?

I’m not a psychologist and have absolutely no psychological training or experience. I took Intro to Psych in college and don’t remember a darn thing. So whatever I know is probably some bastardized form of pop psychology and it probably is a huge waste of time to try to analyze such a dream. Which is why I never did.

Until now.

What does it mean? I would guess this: On the surface it appears I’m afraid to do something [dying in a movie] that ultimately won’t do me any harm. I’m afraid of doing this thing because of self-magnified fears of it [the monsters, or bullets]. But my purpose is to act out the script, as realistically as possible. Conclusion: my subconscious is telling me to suck it up and do what I know I really should do with my life. Take that first step.

Or …

Maybe it means this. I feel trapped following a script for my life that I do not want. The monsters or the bullets or knives are symbolic of the unpleasantness I associate with this path [the movie]. I shrink at having to go through the scenes, knowing what’s ahead. Conclusion: my subconscious is telling me to do whatever I have to do to get off the picture. Take that first step.

Hey, wait a minute.

Either way, no matter how the parts of the dream are interpreted, it seems to be saying the same thing to me. Hmmmmm. No more thinking, procrastinating, whatever. It seems I need to do something …some action ... [acting?]

Or maybe I’m just not cut out to be an actor.