What's In A Dream?

Perhaps you have noticed I've made posts since I had said I wouldn't because I'm out of town. As you may have figured out, my grandparents have uber-fast internet access compared to what they used to have (56K dialup), which allows me to stay in touch with everyone. It's a little less lonely.

I have noticed that I restrict a lot of what I think and say on my blog, but it has been eating at me and I'm going to work on leaving my thoughts here unfiltered.

Last night Derek called me around 2:30 a.m., and it was so nice to hear a familiar voice. Don't get me wrong, I love Connecticut, this is my birthplace; but being cooped up in the house all day absolutely drains my zest and enthusiasm.

Derek told me he had printed out and was going to give J. the letter he wrote, and at some point we had a brief discussion of dreams and the ability to differentiate between vivid dreams and reality.

Last night I had a dream.

In my dream, J. invited Derek to the beach with her friends and family, apparently ignorant of the tension between them, and Derek decided to give her the letter there. Except he forgot it. He asked me to pick it up from wherever it was and bring it to him so he could give it to her.

I got off work, hopped on a bike with the letter (and some other of Derek's mail?), and met them on the beach, which was big, beautiful, and had a long boardwalk. Interestingly I saw my mother on the beach, and attempted to prevent any attention from being drawn to me because for some reason I was terrified of her.

Once I got there I immediately found Derek and J. and gave Derek his stack of mail, including the letter, which he beat around the bush about but finally gave to J. In spite of the fact that it should have been obvious as to the general tone and contents of the letter, she smiled and put it away. She didn't read it.

Derek decided to hang out on the beach a little more, and he and J. persuaded me to stay a while longer as well, even though I didn't have a swimsuit. The three of us laid on the sand, in this order: Derek, J., then me. At one point we were all goofing around and Derek and J. kissed, but I can't remember who initiated it.

Jump scene. Now I'm kissing Derek, and I'm definitely the one who initiated it. Stranger than that is the fact that J. is still between the two of us while we lean over her. At some point the line is drawn then crossed between kissing and making out.

And then...
I wake up.

What I love about life is that I have the capability of higher thought and the ability to then analyze those thoughts. I can experience the whole range of human emotions throughout the span of my life.

What I dislike is the cycling that typically occurs in human nature. As previously mentioned, I am more than satisfied with being single. But the needing someone, that comes and goes like the tide.

And right now the tide is high. I'm in my I-want-to-be-swept-off-my-feet phase, and disheartened because I know it won't happen, but also glad because I know in a week the heavy yearning will have subsided. It's only when I have so much free time on my hands that I realize how lonely I can become.

Back to the dream. This is my best interpretation:

I had the dream at all because hours previous I had disclosed that I could always distinguish between dreams and reality, no matter how vivid the dream became. This is still true. I had also mentioned (did I mention this?) that I haven't dreamt in a while, which in turn, I suppose, makes me "due" for one.

The reason Derek and J. were in my dream is obvious. There has been an ongoing situation there that I am slightly involved in, not so much for advice (since I have none to give) but more of an outlet for venting, and so I know some of the details. Enough to create a substantial amount of movie-quality imaginings during my REM.

As for my mother? I'm not sure. At one point we all headed up to the hotel room that J.'s family had apparently rented on the beach, and my mother wanted inside. As in, she was actually searching for me. With a flashlight, even. I locked myself in the bathroom hoping to escape her. Maybe this is my subliminal making it known though that no matter how much I try to ignore her, to pretend she doesn't exist, she is still in the back of my mind, trying to hammer her way out. Unresolved issues are there, but it's not a topic I usually want to breech. I'm still trying to figure out after five years how to get the closure I need.

And the hot topic: all that kissing. I can't say what the Derek/J. kiss represents in my mind, since for one, I don't know all the details of their relationship, and two, I don't know who kissed who first, which would result in two completely different possible explanations as to why it occured at all.

And the Derek/me extended kiss? This is much tougher to discern. The best that I can come up with is that since I am currently drowning in high tide, Derek's male presence represents my current longing for intimacy. But why him? Well for one, he's in my life. Aside from my father and Albert, he is the most prominent male. I'm considerably closer to him than anyone from the Stavros gang, for sure. And two, I've kissed him before, so there is some familiarity and prior experience to back up the action.

And finally, why literally in front of/above J.? This is either the most simple or the most difficult question to answer. Instead of analyzing my actions first, I will first tell you how it felt when I did it. Awkward, initially, because during the whole thing I was only thinking about what she could possibly be thinking. And then, jealousy. I wanted her to be jealous. I wanted her to hurt for causing visible pain to someone I care about. And I wanted it to stab her deep, something a superficial blow of physical violence could never accomplish. This frightens me a little, because seeking vengeance at all, especially for a wrong that was not committed against me, does not fit into my personality. And as for J., in reality (i.e. outside of any dream I may have about her), I am relatively indifferent toward her. I don't know her at all. It does concern me that Derek is upset about and losing sleep over the whole situation, but the most I can do is be a friend with open ears and arms whenever I'm needed to do that.

Maybe my dreams are just an outlet for me to become, well, super-me, and act in ways that I obviously would not in any other circumstance than that of a false reality.

I feel weird writing this. There is tension behind my eyes, and instead of relieved, I feel anxious.

There is still something further that I've been wanting to get off my chest for a while now, something heavy and burdening.

The problem is, I don't know what's causing it. The heaviness. And so I can't lift from myself a thing that I have no knowledge about, or knowledge that it even exists.

I do know that if I wait it out, it will dissipate. I'm just not sure about how much time will pass before it resurfaces.