On Dreams and Dreaming
Walking home last night I was reminded of how often I used to dream about my teeth falling out. I was nostalgically listening to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, which I either never fully listened to/appreciated, or just doesn't hold up, because it made me painfully aware of how superior an album Siamese Dream is, but I digress... Anyway the track was Stumbleine, the line "....shaking out the loose teeth"; my conscious mind barely registering what the hell I'm listening to and then bam! I'm back in my teenage mindscape, terrorized by another I-lost-my-teeth dream. I haven't had one of those dreams in over 20 years but the memory is crystalline.
If you are unfamiliar with the I-lost-my-teeth dream theme, you must be both lucky and superchill because according to Bustle, it is the #1 stress dream, representing "powerlessness and loss of control." I had a great deal of all of those feelings back in the day so I wholeheartedly concur.
In a fascinating turn of events, I STILL HAVE ALL OF THOSE FEELINGS and yet I haven't dreamt of losing my teeth in years. I have no answers but I do have a theory: My feelings are finally trumped by my desire to change.
I have many, many dreams about changing landscapes and revisiting old scenes, perhaps attempting to finally change the narrative? Dreams centered around navigating my way out shitty situations and trying to find my way when the environment is morphing beneath my feet. Most recently I dreamt of all these ladies around me with shaved heads; I'm all inspired and musing to myself "yeah this is the ticket!". In my waking life I have been tinkering with this idea for some time so I woke feeling really confident about taking the leap into the shorn-female-head life which may or may not happen in the very near future. FYI, the theme of the shaved head is thought to express "... Major change to your regular habits or behavior. Giving up certain thoughts and behaviors, often negative personality traits. A shaved head is common when a person is changing their lifestyle." according to an online dream dictionary. Well, ain't that the fucking truth! I'm about to quit my job and leap off into the wild unknown land of working for myself, a pretty major change.
Getting back to my teenage stress dream nostalgia, (more pleasant then the Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness nostalgia) there were a couple of gems that still stand out in my memory. There's the one where I'm inside a store much like K-Mart - painful fluorescent lighting, dingy linoleum and cheap consumables. I am panicked and being chased by an unseen pursuer, pushing and pushing my way through rack after rack of black clothes. Suddenly these same racks are now on the dirt road just outside my house. The chase continues, the racks are never ending. I wake up in a sweat, no resolution. In another dream, I wake up in my bedroom, can't remember the context, but I become aware that there's something or someone in my closet. I go to investigate and at some point I realize it's the devil. He's entered my closet from some trap door in the floor and he's sitting on a chair, the whole room is dark, it's the middle of the night. I straddle the devil and we start having sex. His tongue is long, deep red and pointy and tastes like applesauce. In fact, there are bits of apple, or at the very least, bits of chunky applesauce, all along his tongue and inside his mouth. Later (awake) I come to learn that humans very rarely experience taste in dreams. I scoff and feel superior.
Returning to the present day, in addition to dreaming about change, I have had several instances in recent months where I am bolted awake by the sound of a doorbell. It has happened within my own home and at my mother's house. When it happens in my apartment, I leap out of bed, grab some pants or a towel, run to answer the door; no one is there. At my mother's house, I don't want to be bothered to get out of bed so I wait and listen. Nobody answers the door because apparently it never rang! It is so real when it happens and I wind up convinced that I've finally gone crazy. Also, I just checked the interwebs and this theme represents new opportunities being presented by the universe. YES. PLEASE.