These Dreams

I recently took a business trip with three other women. We opted to travel by car, but the drive was several hours coming and going. We passed a lot of farm land on the trip, and one lady kept mentioning that she frequently has this dream about being lost in a barn. It kind of became a joke on the trip, as we passed lots of creepy old barns.

I’ve always been fascinated by dreams. I’ve written about that in this journal before. But I’m particularly fascinated with recurring dreams.

There are some dreams I’ve had since I was a child. I’ve had these dreams dozens, maybe even hundreds of times. They may have changed a teeny bit as I’ve gotten older, but the premise of the dream is still the same.

In a dream I have pretty frequently, I am trying to defend myself against someone who wants to cause me harm and I have a gun that won’t shoot. The bullets jam, or they fizzle, and come out with no force. Or I have a weapon, but I left it in the car, or I lost it.

Another recurring dream is that I see a giant tidal wave coming towards me and there’s no place to hide. I run as fast as I can, away from the water, and sometimes I try to get to higher ground; maybe inside a high rise hotel.

I also dream that I see a tornado in the distance. It’s erratic in it’s path and I’m trying to decide which way to run.

Sometimes I dream I see an airplane, and it’s going to crash. Usually the engines are dying and it plummets to the ground. Only once do I remember being a passenger on the plane. Usually I’m watching it from a distance.

Another recurring dream is that I’m driving on a road that has railroad track after railroad track after railroad track. Trains are coming and there’s no lights or crossing gates. I have to floor the accelerator to avoid being smashed.

I'd say all these dreams represent a feeling of being powerless. Of going up against something that is way too big to fight. I guess they all demonstrate codependent tendencies--the need to be in control, but the feeling that your obstacles are way greater that you.

The good thing is, I don’t typically die, or even get hurt in these recurring dreams. They just frighten me.