Champagne Wishes And TEQUILA Dreams

JUST TO LET YOU KNOW….. 

Dreaming can be a double-edged sword. It feels so good to sleep heavily and fall into La-La Land; especially when it’s the really good dreams you remember vividly the next morning; the ones where we champagne wish ourselves back to sleep to literally keep the dream alive.

And then there’s the other edge. The kind more like nightmares. You know those? The ones where your teeth are falling out or you’re trying to drive a car from the backseat and your foot can barely touch the pedals and when it does, the brakes don’t work. Have you had those? Many years ago in my early twenties I would have these kinds of dreams. Repeatedly. I’d wake up in a cold sweat frantically checking my teeth and then I would let out a huge sigh of relief that I was safely in bed with my canines intact, rather than mangled around a tree from erratically crashing a car.  The good news is I don’t have those nightmares anymore. The unpolished news though is I’ve replaced them with new ones.

From time to time I will dream about being back in college. The same college where I actually did attend with the same buildings and classrooms I remember being in. However, in my dream I have a final exam to take and I can’t find the classroom. In my dream I have made it to what I presume to be the correct building but I’m searching and searching for the right room. I’ve looked everywhere but I’m lost. In my dream I’m equal parts freaking out and relieved. Freaking out because I’m going to be late and miss the test if I can’t find where the test is being administered but also relieved because I know in my gut I’m not adequately prepared. I haven’t mastered the material and I know I’m bound to fail.

In the same quantum realm [of college] I also have repeated dreams of graduation. Not the actual ceremony adorned in cap and gown but more notably what comes after. The dream is the same every time. I’ve graduated college but I don’t know where my diploma is. I’ve misplaced it. In my dream I know I had it because someone of authority handed something to me when I crossed the stage and flipped that tassel thing dangling from my head. But then I get confused. Very confused. Did that really happen or does that only happen in the movies? Does every, single college graduate walk across the stage and shake hands with someone important or was that just High School? I’m confusing them and it’s making me panic.  And now I’ve realized two things: 1. I have no idea where my college diploma is and 2. I also have no idea where my High School diploma is. Did I even graduate? Does it even matter? Did I ever find the classroom to take the final exam? Wait, is that part of this dream or was that an entirely different nightmare? Did I actually get accepted to college at all?

No need for an actual alarm clock. I wake up alarmed all on my own. I catch my breath while realizing almost three decades have gone by. What the hell is my subconscious trying to tell me? Maybe if I had paid more attention in Intro to Psych my freshmen year I’d have a clearer understanding.

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JUST TO LET YOU KNOW….

Last night I drank tequila. Several tequilas actually. They went down smoothly or so I thought. I got home, went to bed and had a new dream. It wasn’t about college. It wasn’t about losing teeth. It wasn’t about driving cars. It has however kept my head Patroning today as I’m still trying to swallow it all. Was it my temporal lobe trying to tap in and make an emotional association or was it simply just the tequila talking?

 

You decide:

I’m at the airport. JFK. The former TWA terminal to be exact which is now the TWA hotel. I don’t know if this has anything to do with the fact I’m currently watching Bravo’s Project Runway and the season opens with the designers’ first fashion show there but nonetheless, this is the backdrop of my dream. I’m at the airport and I’m heading up an escalator. The problem is the escalator is going down. Fun, right? Not really. Have you ever tried to go up an escalator that’s headed down? It’s tricky to say the least. Somehow I manage to find myself right side up but my luggage doesn’t make it. All I have with me is a clutch. This clutch I might add, is a clutch I carry with me in real time, real life, every day, including today, right now as I write this blog. A gift from a friend I’ve been using for the last two years. Relevant? I don’t know, but I’ve decided it’s an important detail to the story. So anyway, I’m finally traveling in the right direction on the escalator despite the fact my suitcases are gone with the exception of this black and white faux leather clutch that serves as my wallet. At least I have my wallet, right? Well, yes except….. and here’s the clutch catch, I’m holding onto the clutch but unbeknownst to me, I’m holding it upside down and the clutch is somehow unzipped. My credit cards, picture identification, cash and pretty much everything else in this clutch falls out. Yup all of it: tampons, gum, lip gloss, a book of stamps. You get the picture? All my essentials have fallen in the space between the up and the down escalator. So as I’m [finally] moving up, I’m watching my belongings fall down, down, down farther away from me. The nightmare is that I can see my stuff….. I just can’t reach it. And then in this dream/nightmare sequence you will not believe what happens next. I make my way around to the bottom of the down escalator and stop it with my heel. It’s a trick I learned many years ago which I’ve  perfected. It’s a sure thing; the third step from the bottom has a sensor and if you stand with your back against the moving wall and kick your heel at precisely the right moment the entire escalator will stop. It’s cruel and dangerous and I honestly have no answer as to whom or why anyone would intentionally do this other than to be a total asshole, but nevertheless this is in fact on my resumé of unpolished, idiotic things I know how to do. So, in my dream/nightmare this trick comes in handy because I successfully stopped the down escalator, ran halfway up it and folded my body in half over the side in between the space of the two opposing escalators and stretched as hard as I could to pick up my belongings. In plain sight I saw my lip gloss and my driver’s license. I also saw the corner peeking out of what I believed to be my red, plastic Wells Fargo debit card. I couldn’t see the entire thing because there was a piece of paper covering most of it. I kept reaching and reaching trying to grab the paper with my fingers as if they were human tweezers. After several attempts I finally got it. What was the paper, you ask?

I kid you not….. It was my college diploma.

 

SO JUST TO LET “ME” KNOW……  What do you think? Was it my temporal lobe trying to tap in and make an emotional association or was it simply just the tequila talking?