Dreams.

For those who think that I am slightly abnormal, strange, weird, odd, or maybe even all those things without the generous qualification of "slightly," this blog may not help my situation. This is one of those situations however where my latest tweet didn't quite do justice to the actual situation, and I believe a further explanation is in order.  You see, I was afraid the tigers would get me.

I actually don't remember much from the dream last night except that I think I was in a tent, I was definitely in a sleeping bag of some sort, and there were tigers. These were hungry tigers and they were after me. Knowing that my sleeping bag would provide protection (?), I had wrapped myself up tightly with my head covered and only a tiny opening to breathe from, and this was how I woke up in my own bed with covers over my head.  It's actually strangely reminiscent of how I used to sleep as a kid, tightly cocooned in my bed.  Anyway... I got up to use the bathroom, still logically thinking in my mind that this was a good idea protecting myself from those tigers.  It wasn't until I was getting back into bed that the sleep wore off enough to realize that there really were no tigers, and that I didn't need to sleep in that uncomfortable position.

My history of having odd dreams goes right back to my early childhood. The earliest one I remember was about a car accident, "filmed" in back and white. The dream was as if I was watching the news, and a commentator was filling in the details of what happened. "The baby's burns were mostly in his brains.  But as for Mr. X......"  At that moment a mottled face flashed at me and I woke up in terrible distress.  I'm still not sure how one burns their brains however.....
The next one I remember really got strange. It started off in the country on a winding dirt and gravel road.  It was me and my brothers, except we were black.  For some reason my brother got angry, and just as he often did in real life (really), he took out his anger by walking down the road and lying down in the middle of it.  (for the record, my middle brother actually did when he was around 7- and yes it freaked my mom out real good).   Anyway, back to the dream, suddenly an old pickup truck quickly rounded the corner and ran over my brother. At this point the dream setting changed, and I was now the one who had been run over, I was now white, and I was in the doctors office about to be fitted with my prothetic arm. The nice doctor was explaining to me how normal it was, and then he said gently, "Look, I have one too." He pulled back his sleeve to expose the most horrific metal grasping contraption I'd ever seen shocking me out of my dream and back to consciousness, once again to terrible distress.

Flash forward about 10 years and we come to the strangest dream I ever had, and it even had its own title. (I'm serious... read on...)   I was hanging out with some friends from high school (this would have been 94, the year after I graduated), and we had gone from the library to a friends house.  After being inside for awhile, we went out into the backyard, which was actually a dark forest. Somehow I had become separated from my friends when suddenly they were all attacked by a bear. I could hear them being mauled and screaming for help along with the brutal sound of a roaring attacking bear, and all I could think to do for safety was to hide under a pile of leaves. As my friends were being massacred, the movie announcer began to speak; "THE TERROR, THE HORROR, at ....."wait for it... "BLOOD RIVER." With the annunciation of the dream title, the words BLOOD RIVER, dripping with blood, appeared as if on a movie screen.

I'm starting to remember why I used to pull the covers over my head as a kid.........