Something is the keeper of the dreams.

I don't know what's normal and not normal for any one person to dream about.  Do all animals dream?  Do fish dream?  What about ants - yet I still question whether they actually sleep.  Do you have to have a certain brain capacity in order to achieve a dream state?  Are humanoids the only ones who would classify something as a good or bad dream?

Kids have baby versions of scary dreams.  Like I can't even fathom what I would have dreamt about that was so awful.  But I do know, I'd rather have ALL those back, once a week forever, in place for what's happened to my scary dream repertoire over the last 5 years.

My dreaming profile certainly includes the odd balls, where nothing makes sense but gives you a laugh when you wake up.  The emotionally heightened & intense, which isn't really sexual but rather connecting with someone on a VERY deep level.  And the final bucket would be repeat performances of the stress induced.  I never even knew what that meant until I started talking to Travis about them years ago.  He said he's always experienced them as a kid, which totally sucks!  meep, I had my naive card showing the whole time.

When you have more responsibility, more bills, more environmental stress, your mind translates that into a series of fucked up visions, whispers of ideas rather, and we wake up confused and playing therapist to ourselves.  Or with our mentor, google.

A list of common my story lines:

• The entire city is on fire.  I'm usually at my parents actual house where giant bombs are dropping overhead.  I have to constantly look up, so I can move myself and my pets to protective shelter, while the bombs explode nearby.  I'm screaming and running as fast as I can... oh and the bombs change direction at a whim.  So even when you think you're safe, you might not be.  So far, I've avoided meeting my maker.
• Demons, goblins or leprechauns with nasty teeth chasing me in what feels like the Halloween or Poltergeist movie "city." It's always dark and misty and late.  very late.  No one else is ever with me, on the streets or in the houses.  Desolate, but not abandoned.  I hold my breath while they get close and sniff the air.  They are quick, but I'm smarter.  My only enemy is the lack of ability to run.  I try and try but I can't - so I resort to clawing my way against the pavement, hoping to just find an escape.  So far, they've never caught me.  Or maybe they are simply lurking in the shadows, waiting for the prime moment...
• Trying to run away from something or someone and being unable to.  This is more generic, I know, but it does happen outside of the one above.  Deep inside the little voice just keeps repeating run, run, run from the thing.  But instead I'm up against invisible hands, pushing against my shoulders, keeping me back and closer to It.
• The biggie - being chased by a baddie and then killing him.  It's always with a knife, by the mercy of my hands.  It's me and only me who confronts them before I kill them.  Like no joke, stabbing/slashing/thrashing/slicing - the whole bit.  Anything I can do to eliminate this life because he was after me.  Who, by the way, is NEVER anyone I know.

fun.

Occasionally, but never the same trigger, I'll have an anti-inception moment.  It's not a dream within a dream, but rather a self statement of you ARE dreaming, wake up yo!  When I do raise my eyes and catch my breath, I'm shook for days.

How - how can complete and utter fiction impact our lives on either the pleasure or pain extreme?  The brain is the most powerful computer and yet I struggle to write eloquently in my open state.  But shoot, fall me asleep and watch that story seed weave!  It's like we're two separate people, each writing different points of view for the same storyboard.

Maybe my night can influence my day - that's wild.