I had a weird dream last night. Most of the time, I can't remember my dreams. In the past 6 years, the large majority of the ones I CAN remember involve somehow returning to my mission and/or being a missionary again. This dream didn't stray from that common theme, but it was an strange variation upon it.
One of the unusual elements of this dream was that I had a companion I knew. In fact, it was my sister Marinda. She is currently serving a mission in the Philippines. I guess that's probably why she showed up in my recurring dream. When I realized that Marinda was my companion, I had a number of thoughts run through my mind, among them "why did they call us both to the same mission? Moreover, after having done so, why did our president make us companions? This must be the first time such a thing ever happened!" I was in the process of wondering how this strange arrangement was going to work out when the dream moved forward.
I next found myself sitting in a temple foyer desperately trying to get a member to tell me a story about his investigator friend that I somehow knew was vital for our success. The problem was that this member was both emotional and somewhat reticent with this story, and so it was taking forever for me to coax it out of him, and I was getting quite frustrated. I was definitely struggling to maintain my missionary calm, despite my impatience. The situation was all the more maddening because I was aware that we urgently needed this info to make a good decision on how to help our investigator. Marinda wanted to forget hearing the story and simply go meet our investigator right away. I felt like we really needed to hear it and was pretty insistent that we stay, so she got mad and left. Knowing that I'd later have to smooth things over with her made me even more agitated to quickly learn what I needed to know.
It seemed like this scenario dragged on forever with me trying to wheedle the information out any way I could. I can't even remember if I ever learned what I needed to know as the dream ended. The funny part was that the member I was talking to was B.J. Novak, as in the guy who played Ryan on The Office, or rather he looked exactly like B.J. Novak though he was definitely a different personality. I've heard that everyone you see in your dream, even the nameless extras, if you will, have the face of someone you have at least seen before because supposedly your brain can't make up faces. I guess my brain was just pulling a face from the file, but the weird thing was that I recognized whose face it was, though I also understood he was also a different person. That whole thing added a strange surreal effect. I think the dream was so vivid because my rational mind was still working and identifying the ridiculous elements of the situation presented though I was still immersed in the dream.
Dreams have always been fascinating to me. I think there is potentially a lot that can be learned from them, though I also think we don't understand what they mean particularly well for the most part. Dreaming is an interesting phenomenon that I hope we will continue to learn more about. I'm not all that sure what this wacky dream meant, though I am fairly sure that my frequent mission dreams indicate how much I miss being a missionary. I gather it's not a common enough dream to have any "official" interpretation.
Some of my recurring dreams are much more common though. In fact, there are dreams that I used to have that I don't really have anymore and some that have developed more recently. When I was a child, my nightmares pretty much always ended up with me getting eaten by something. I specifically remember a bear and the Hound of Baskervilles from Ghostbusters eating me, but it was always some sort of animal or monster. Apparently, this isn't a very common dream, but it's thought that maybe it represents parts of your character that you are not happy with. The other dream I remember having often as a child was alternately flying and sinking while being chased, as if I could fly, just not very well. Both dreams are common, but not really together, it seems.
It's been quite a while since I had either of those dreams. Now, a new set of dreams has replaced the childhood ones. One that I've had more commonly in recent years is that I'm back in high school and the bell rings, but I have no idea where my classes are, leading to panic, naturally. This is supposed to indicate career stress or uncertainty. This seems like a plausible explanation to me, as I've certainly experienced both stress and uncertainty about my career. I also get the teeth falling out dream fairly often, which is supposed to indicate various types of anxiety. Sometimes in dreams I look down and discover that I'm not wearing any pants, but typically no one else seems to pay attention, so I just continue on my business to play it off like normal. This basically is interpreted as feeling vulnerable, exposed, or afraid of judgment, though no one else noticing indicates that those fears are unfounded. Not only have I tried to pass off pantslessness in a dream, I've also often been performing with a dance group without knowing the steps and tried to make the dance up as I go too. I guess my subconscious is good at making the best of a bad situation!
My recurring dreams have evolved since I was a kid, but at least my most common recurring dream has gone from my nightmares to something more positive. It's still sad for me, when I wake up from my most frequent dream of being a missionary, to realize that it isn't real, but it's much better than waking up terrified. This morning, I woke mostly feeling bemused!
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