The Subconscious Mind

Last night I had three very strange dreams. In the first dream my oldest daughter, who is currently 13, drove our family's vehicle to Idaho. In the second dream I was trying to fulfill a work assignment and just couldn't get it done. For some reason I ended up at the mall with two supposed co-workers (that I don't even know), and since my job has nothing to do with the mall that could explain why I wasn't able to complete my assignment. Then my dream sort of morphed into another quite vivid dream in which one of my nameless co-workers invited me to attend her church. It was a strange church service, even by dream standards. And it seemed to go on and on, which was a problem because I really had to pee. After the service was over I began wandering the halls looking for a restroom. The church was quite large and had everything you could want in a church (except restrooms, apparently, but that's okay--when you start looking for restrooms in your dreams you NEVER want to find them).

I woke up and used the bathroom, then reflected on the strange variety of dreams I was having. I wasn't on any medications that might have influenced them (really!), but I think my mind was working through things in its own bizarre subconscious way. Sometimes my dreams seem like they are just the result of a restless mind wandering through a random subconscious landscape, but other times my dreams seem to have more meaning and can be closely connected with real-world experiences and fears.

If I were to interpret last night's dreams I would say that my dream about work was tied to a very real fear that I will be given an assignment I am somehow unable to complete (I had an emotionally taxing day at work yesterday, so that dream kind of makes sense). My dream about my daughter driving is probably tied to a fear of her getting her license. And my dream about the church service may simply have been my brain's attempt to wake me up because my bladder was full :)

I think sometimes the brain needs to work through scenarios it fears in the safety of the nighttime hours, in the comfort of a dream state. Suspenseful novels and movies accomplish a similar purpose during the day: they help us work through "worst-case" scenarios within the confines of the printed page or the silver screen, and I think they help us to understand ourselves better and maybe even deal with our own difficult situations more effectively.

Now that mankind has split the atom, put a man on the moon and created the Internet, I wonder if the next "frontier" will be to gain an understanding of the subconscious mind.

Today has been a little less stressful than yesterday, so perhaps tonight's dreams will be a little less meaningful, and a little less memorable. I would be okay with that. And I'll try to drink less water before going to bed.