Dreams

Lately I’ve been having the sort of dreams that I imagine a six-year-old girl would have. Dreams about ice cream, baskets of puppies, and finding money. I also dreamt of a shopping spree in West Elm but the wonders of that store typically aren’t discovered until one’s early twenties. I woke up very embarrassed that I really had that dream.

Regardless, this is a refreshing change from my standard selection of dreams, which rotate between plots of being chased and hunted all within a theme focused on murder or dismemberment. I’ve always had gruesome dreams. I remember Ari once suggesting a Freudian-esque study be done on me. “You’re such a happy person.” she told sixteen year old Lu, “It’s strange you have such violent dreams.”

I have a number of reoccurring dreams. I’ll tell you about them.

1) I’m running from someone (who’s going to kill me) except that my legs are weighted down so I run in slow motion while everyone else is galloping towards me at full speed.

2) I get picked up and carried off somewhere (to be killed) and when I scream no sound comes out so no one comes to save me and

3) I often dream that my teeth fall out.

This post is getting animal themed photos. This is my dog park pal, Mac

BUT the most exciting dream involves playing a rousing game of Hide and Seek with a gaggle of British Red Coats from the Revolutionary War. Though my dream is set in modern America, they insist on wearing their historical costumes and operating on the lackadaisical rules and regulations of their outdated era. I’ve had this dream about twice each year for the last seventeen years. I can pinpoint this dream to the year 2000. I was ten years old and watched The Patriot for the first time. Shortly after was the debut of the Red Coat Dream.

The first few years were the most stressful. You see there is a catch to this game of Hide and Seek, which is precisely what makes it fall under the category of Bad Dreams. The rules are simple. I hide and eight Red Coats come looking for me. The game takes place entirely within my childhood home and you cannot hide outside. I must hide separately from my parents and sister and I cannot hide in the same spot I hid in the last time I had the dream. When I’m awake I usually can’t remember where I hid last but my brain stores it away and reminds me just in time to go find a new spot before they kick down the front door.

Now, the Bad Dream part, if the Red Coats find me, they stab me through the stomach with their bayonets. Right now the score is about 50/50 but I wake up in terror 100% of the time. As the years have passed, I’ve formed a one sided kinship with the Red Coats, who seem to give me a little more time each year to find a good spot to hide. Just moments into the beginning of this dream, before the start whistle is blown, if you will, one of my layers of subconscious always goes, “Aww crap, it’s the Red Coat dream!” and then multiple subconscious layers grumble and grunt while a few go very tense and one of them runs off to go ask my brain where we hid last year.

My most conscious subconscious then works to keep me calm. I encourage myself, remind myself of the successful outcomes we’ve had in the past, and also point out that the Red Coats probably look forward to this dream as little as I do. I also standby to wake myself up if things get too scary. I’ve gotten very good at realizing I’m dreaming and telling me to wake the crap up. During less stressful versions of the Red Coat Dream I consider chuckling at those silly fellas when they barrel right past my newest ingenious hiding place. While I’m hiding, I can hear an argument of subconscious-es. Some of them are very aware that I’m dreaming but others still take the job very seriously as it has dire outcomes if I choose not to participate. Sometimes, if I feel really good about my hiding place, I tell the subconscious that wants to wake me up to “Shut up!” so I can see if they’ll really find me. “I wanna see if I’ll make it!” I tell my unconscious conscience.

I’ve told my family of the horrors of my dreams and they only seem confused and unconcerned and then tell me about the wacky, fun ones they have. All of them have had The Flying Dream; a delightful experience where they lift off into the air and have the sensation of flying.

“You can really feel it!” they tell me, their faces full of joy.

“I got to fly over Charleston Harbor!” Dad told me with childlike enthusiasm. Mom has had the flying dream a gaggle of times and even Ellen, Ellen, has gotten to soar over open ocean. For years they’ve regaled tales of the weightless freedom they feel in the Flying Dream and for years I’ve longed to be free from my subconscious terrors and float into the sky, spread my arms, and feel the wind on my cheeks.

And then one night, while I was running with weighted legs from a man in trench coat, I lifted off of the ground. My legs kept running forward though no street was beneath them. The farther they ran the higher I lifted and then a gust of wind blew me forwards and I lay on my stomach in the air. I soared over my parents house, along the length of my favorite dock, and out over Charleston Harbor. It was a thrilling sensation, so thrilling that one of my pesky conscious subconsciouses shouted “It’s the Flying Dream!” so loudly that I woke up instantly.  That marks the angriest I’ve ever been with myself.

A month ago, I dreamt a new dream. I was driving too quickly around a corner in Mt. Pleasant (my subconscious knew that I was heading to TJ Maxx but that’s not a pertinent detail) and I crashed my car into a wall. Moments before, when I lost control of the car, I knew I would hit this wall and subsequently, kick the bucket. Knowing this, in my dream I calmly said, “God, please take me.” and in that moment my car hit the wall and I crashed through the windshield and over a ledge.

The interesting thing is that it wasn’t scary and it didn’t hurt. It was very quiet and I moved through the air silently, very awake, just waiting for the next thing to happen. Once over the ledge, I dropped very slowly. I floated downward like a piece of paper falls to the ground and while I drifted, I had the most intense feelings of joy and excitement. I knew God had something really great coming. It was so simple. My soul left my body on Earth and just went right on to the next thing. I didn’t miss my life here, I knew I loved my family, and I knew I’d see them so soon and couldn’t wait for them to get here. It was the most wonderful feeling of peace.

BUT, this can’t be a Laura dream unless it has a disappointing ending so, as I basked in peaceful hope and readied myself for heaven and unfathomable greatness, God played a cruel joke on me and had me wake up in a hospital bed, having survived the crash, and therefore subjected to more harsh years on Earth fighting over sale items at TJ Maxx.

I woke up from this dream somewhat concerned that I had “died” in my sleep and also very excited to die one day. Maybe I had that dream because God wanted to tell me to stop worrying so much, to remind me that he’s got me and that this life is temporary. We have so much more to look forward to.

I’ve also been thinking about the idea that we are souls within bodies instead of one whole entity. Imagine an army of souls and that we’re all similar but with different gifts and God picks us up by our wispy heads and dangles us over a few different body options and then plops us down into the one he likes best for us. When you think of it that way, it’s amusing to point and laugh at all the different shapes we have to work with.

“Haha! Look at the knees on that body!” we could sneer.

“God gave me a body with no hair and a bum leg!” one might complain.

“Haha!” all the souls would chuckle. “How’s God expect you to work with that?”

I’d never thought of my body and face and hands merely as a mode of transportation and productivity for my soul. Our bodies are what we identify ourselves with. We could probably pick our lips and feet and shoulders out of a line-up of body parts and fondly or shamefully claim them as the ones that were assigned to us. And it’s true I suppose. I’ll live in this body until it gives out one day, like the battery in a remote control Tonka truck.

Then I thought of our bodies as listings on a heavenly MLS and everyone we see walking around is currently being rented.

“John lives in there, Susan’s renting that one, and last I heard Dan had to take his to a hospital for a tune up but they patched the leak and he’s dong fine.” Unborn babies in bellies are contingent condo listings and hospice care is collection of foreclosed homes. 

This thought made me laugh.

Because I'm simple.