Dream a little dream

The Carnivore has this amazingly useful trick. He goes to bed thinking about a work-related problem and during the night dreams the solution. Of course this means that not only does he do boring accounting stuff in his waking hours, but he’s still doing it when he’s asleep. If it were me I think I’d rather stab myself in the eye with a fork, but hey, to each his own. And you’ve got to admit, it’s a very handy trick.

I am insanely jealous. I’ve tried and tried, but it never works for me. Wouldn’t it be cool to untangle the knots of the latest WIP in your sleep? So easy! But no, my unco-operative brain insists on dreaming about public toilets. Night after night, my search for a toilet is foiled. They have no doors, or people are holding parties in them, or …

What’s that you say? You’d rather dream about accounting?

Sigh. It would be nice if we could choose our dreams, wouldn’t it? I used to have interesting dreams. Nowadays my subconscious seems too focused on the messages from my ageing bladder. I don’t know what it was focused on in the days of my T-rex dreams. Probably just the general terror of being responsible for the lives and wellbeing of a number of small people.

I haven’t had it for a couple of years now, but I used to have this recurring dream where there was a tyrannosaurus rex in the backyard. Details changed from dream to dream. Sometimes I was trying to call our stupid dog inside. She was busy barking and ignored me (very realistic dream!) and got eaten. Other times I was already inside when the dinosaur appeared. The crux of every dream was my desperate search for a room in the house where the T-rex wouldn’t be able to see me through the windows and attack.

So I usually ended up locked in the pantry.

The ducklings have heard me describe this dream many times, usually while wearing identical “Good Lord, our mother is a fruitcake” expressions.

Today Demon Duck was describing a dream she had last night. I’ve mentioned before that she and I have very similar senses of humour. We got a lot of giggles out of this one. In her dream she was being eaten by a T-rex.

“You idiot,” I said. “You should have hidden in the pantry!”

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6 Responses to Dream a little dream

  1. Jacqui says:

    Ha!
    I can never solve problems in my dreams; I always come up with something that seems obvious and brilliant by night and then is utterly ludicrous when I awaken.

  2. Jaye Patrick says:

    Is this where I mention the subconscious meaning of T-rex’s in the garden and… toilets??

    Hmm, maybe not…

  3. writerjenn says:

    I never solve writing problems in my sleep either.

    I’m thinking you may have seen JURASSIC PARK at a very vulnerable time of your life!

  4. Marina says:

    Jacqui, in between toilet dreams I occasionally have a dream that’s so brilliant that, even while I’m still dreaming it, I’m saying to myself, “this would make a great book! I’ve got to remember it!”. Except when I wake up … yep, “utterly ludicrous” about captures it.

    Jaye, are you suggesting I’d need an awfully big pooper-scooper?

    Jenn, I reckon Jurassic Park was one of the best page-turners I ever read. I stayed up till about 3 in the morning reading it, unable to stop. I was almost hyperventilating by the end of it, it was so suspenseful.

    I think knowing what was coming made the movie even scarier than it might have been. And heaven knows it was scary enough!

  5. Cat says:

    I solve problems in my sleep and when I wake up in the morning about half of the solutions still hold and are really good. But then life begins, the kids get up and my hubby needs this and that and the dog barks because the neighbor…
    And when I find the time to write down the solution it’s gone with the wind.

  6. Marina says:

    Oh no, Cat, how frustrating! Threaten to scribble it on them if they get between you and a piece of paper before you’ve got it safely written down.