Well, Sweetie is making fun of me for this, but I'll share it with you anyway.

I've had three water/flood/wave dreams this week.  Three in one week.  To say nothing of the massively long Noah's Ark dream I had a month ago.  During the first two dreams, I was more of an observer.  I watched as huge waves crashed against other people.  The first was a lake - almost like I was standing at Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe.  The waters receded in a big whoosh of a vacuum and people were standing at the bottom of the bay.  But the water came back in waves and kept slamming against them. 

The second dream was with an ocean that produced massive waves so quickly the fishermen and boaters did not have time to get out of the water.  One boat was repeatedly swept up against the shore and back out to sea.  One couple was trying to disembark without losing their grip on the ladder they were holding.  It wasn't possible.

Last night I was a participant and watched as people were trying to pile up sandbags underwater.  But their efforts were not good enough and a wave of water came crashing over everyone.  I was swept along and heading towards a huge maelstrom of swirling water.  I reached out to the branches of a tall tree standing above the water and held on for my life.  A giraffe was swept away beside me, but the tree held fast and I avoided getting sucked away.

Last night I was probably influenced by the fact it was raining as I fell asleep.

Finally!  Rain!  Maui has been in desperate need of rain as talk of mandatory water restrictions for Central Maui circulate once again.  The rain and water are a welcome relief. 

So I don't know what my brain is trying to convey with the multitude of water dreams this week.  Maybe I should stop drinking water before I go to sleep??

Here's some music for you.  Flood by Jars of Clay.

Photo Credit:  http://www.dentonbach.com/poems/1.htm

Is that a question along the lines of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

For those of you who tend to worry about my sleeping habits, let me start by assuring you all - I have been sleeping quite well lately.  Honestly.  I've probably gotten more sleep in the last four months than I have in the last five years.  I don't fall asleep instantly, but I am almost always alseep by 2 a.m. (believe me, this is good).  I usually wake up before the alarm goes off.  Sometimes I get up.  Sometimes (ok, quite often) I let myself sleep until after Sweetie leaves for work. It's been fairly nice.

I've had a few bumpy nights the last couple of weeks.  Some bad dreams.  Some extra tossing.  It's always a given that I lie in bed awake longer than Sweetie.  He is amazing.  He can fall sleep faster than my male cousins watching football on a couch during family get-togethers.  Which means I sometimes toss quietly as I try and get my brain to shut down (when am I going to find that off switch??).  Or I sometimes toss as I poke him onto his side during the loudest of snoring.  Or I sometimes fall asleep only to wake with a bad dream.  Or, worst of all, a bad bout of sleep paralysis.  That happened last night.  Perhaps explaining why I'm still sitting in front of a computer tonight. 

Last night, I knew I would have a hard time falling asleep since Sweetie is out of town.  Much as his snoring can keep me awake, I prefer his steady calming presence.  I'll take the risk of being sleep punched in the face* for the company. 

So, what do I do when I know I will have trouble falling asleep?  Do I go to bed early to make up for the hours spent not sleeping?  Do I go to bed at any decent hour of the night just to relax and try and get some brain benefits of not staring at my computer?  No.  Of course not.  I avoid the bed and waste time until the wee hours of the night when I am sure to panic about the fact that I am not asleep yet.   This is a bad habit.  This is a habit I started when my insomnia was more chronic and I would spend nights on end tracking back and forth between bed and couch and bed and couch. 

And you know what?  I don't think I am the only one with this bad habit.  I think a lot of insomniacs try and distract themselves away from the whole ordeal of bedtime when they can't sleep.  Why bother? I guess.  It doesn't really make sense.  But we do it.  Counter-intuitive and  counterproductive?  Yes.  Somehow instinctive and unconscious?  Yes again.  I don't know why I do it.  I just do. 

I would advise people who have trouble sleeping to get to bed early to give yourself time to relax and fall asleep comfortably.  But what do I know?  What do you do when you can't fall asleep?

*Speaking of being sleep punched in the face, this has to be one of my favorite Dane Cook bits.  Sweetie showed this to me after he sleep punched me, and we laughed so hard we cried.  We still laugh about it.  If you ever hear one of us randomly shout out "JOHN!" - this is where it comes from.

P.S. - No joke.  Have I mentioned that, - over here in Maui, the roosters start crowing at 2:00 a.m.?  Uuugggggg!! There are roosters and chickens all over the island.  And they are dumb as rocks apparently.  As if my brain, Sweetie's snoring, and wind storms aren't bad enough.  I have to try and sleep through crowing roosters in the middle of the night!

I had a dream this morning with a beautiful yard in it.  It included, along the back border, a large rocky area with two small ponds.  The family had a big turtle, and I watched the turtle as it swam around the ponds - diving below the surface, swimming to the rocks.  The turtle was walking across the rocks and would lose its footing, slide down the rocks a bit, then get back up and keep walking.  I thought about how long some turtles live and thought - what a nice home this turtle has with plenty of room to run and swim.

I walked around the yard, then turned back to go to the house.  I saw the turtle and then, suddenly, in front of the turtle was a large hippopotamus.  The turtle walked up to the hippo and put his head in the hippo's mouth.  I thought "Oh, does the hippo live here too? Is this something they do all the time?"  Then, to my horror, the hippo's mouth clamped down and I thought "That's not playing! There is no way the turtle could survive that!"  Then, it was almost like the turtle was an alligator, because the hippo shook his head and the rest of the body flopped over on itself, like a pancake folded in half.  And with another head shake, the hippo swallowed the rest of the turtle/alligator dead thing. 

I felt quite sad for the turtle and felt bad because I was going to have to go in and tell the family their turtle was dead and there was an enormous, very evil hippo wandering around their nice backyard.  Poor turtle.

From Junglephotos.com:

So, after finally falling asleep around 4 a.m. last night, here are the images that woke me up every half hour or so until 7:30:

People sitting around. I realize that there are people talking, I walk around and see that they have no bodies. They are basically heads in boxes sitting on chairs talking. I was thinking "They can't be alive can they? Can you live without a body?!" They were alive, but miserable because, hey, they have no bodies. That one woke me up.

I'm hiding out in an apartment and trying to peek out the blinds. There are death squads outside - basically people who are hunting down the folks in the apartments and killing them. I'm trying to peek without letting them see me, but I moved the blinds too much and it caught the eye of someone outside.

Now I'm hiding in an almost-deserted part of a burned out town. There are odd doors and big pieces of wood stacked up and other people are trying to hide behind anything that is big enough. But, since hiding places are scarce, any time you find one, you run the risk of being killed by another person trying to hide. Again, I'm awake.

I'm at the back end of a huge industrial-like garage. I need to get out of there. But there are a line of swinging columns in front of me, with only a tiny walkway between each. I realize that the swinging columns are actually long streams of molten metal and, if I get too close, the heat will burn me. There are a bunch of people in front of me, and I try to avoid them, but I end up bumping a guy in a suit with briefcase. He goes flying backward, drops his briefcase and may have fallen into the blazing metal (not sure). His fall momentarily stopped the moving columns and I made a dash for the door. Yup - that dream woke me up also.

I'm trying to walk around but realize there are hidden cameras all over the place. I don't want anyone to realize that I just escaped into these hallways, but I'm not stealthy enough. I end up looking right at the camera, which is a dead giveaway that I don't belong there.

I'm at a gas station and suddenly, someone starts jumping around, slashing people left and right. He's jumping around a lot, so I figure he must be a mutant frogman (don't ask me how). I jump in the car with someone else and we try and leave, along with other cars. The frogman shoots out his frog tongue and picks up another car and flings it in the air. We speed off down the street, but the frog guy is zipping after us, throwing out his tongue, which can cut a person in half if it catches you.

hmm...maybe that's how those people lost all their body parts. And with that.....I wake up for good.

1. Fresno, California

2. Zion National Park

3. Craters of the Moon National Park

4. San Antionio River Walk

5. Zermatt, Switzerland

6. Boise, Idaho

7. Cannes, France

8. Las Vegas, Nevada

9. Houston, Texas

10. Haleakala National Park

11. Yosemite National Park

12. Cambridge, UK

13. Elk, California


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1. ancsweetnsassygal

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Yesterday, Cheela shared one of her recent dreams on her blog. It was very fun to read.

As I've mentioned before, I often have very vivid dreams. I had a crazy one last night. I woke up thinking that I had a vivid dream. But I could not remember it. I tried not to think about it. And an hour later - pop! the whole dream popped back into my head. It was very emotional and very intense. In the spirit of sharing, I thought I would describe it here. (for those of you who know me - no one was stabbed in this dream)

I was in a suite of rooms with my brood. And by "brood", I mean my kids. And by "kids" I mean werewolves.

My sweet, precious little pack of werewolves. Reminds me a lot of Snow White and Bigby Wolf's pack of cubs from the Bill Willingham comic book "Fables."  Because most of them looked half-wolf. Anyway, my kids and I were romping around these big pillows next to a large wardrobe. I was walking around the room, and when I walked back, the pups/kids were all gone. I figured they were hiding in the wardrobe and opened the doors. And they were inside. But I couldn't get in. There was a shimmering force-field of energy in front of me, and I couldn't reach in and grab my kids. Then, one of them *popped!* away. The other kids starting looking around in panic, realizing something bad was going on. Then, another one *popped* and was gone. I frantically tried to break through the force field. I was yelling at my kids to come to me but, of course, they couldn't get through either. I ran to the door of our suite to get help. There were a bunch of people on the other side of the door, but there was another force-field on the door. Which stayed in place until all my kids had popped away.

Then I ran out. Into the waiting arms of......a bunch of vampires?

Yes. It appears that my spouse was a vampire. I myself must have been part werewolf. So our kids were part human, part werewolf, and part vampire. And there were all these vampires around me trying to figure out what had happened. They figured out that their people (other vampires) had taken my kids back to the vampire world to get rid of some helpless werewolves. I guess we were all living in exile from the vampire world, but my husband's friends and family could go back to the vampire world if they wanted. They told me they would go back and try and find and rescue my kids. But I was adamant that I would go with them. No matter that a part-werewolf would be instantly killed in the home world of the vampires. I wanted to find my pups!

(now, I should note that throughout this dream, the vampires didn't really look like typical vampires. No fangy teeth. Only slightly pale. Just tall, striking, human-looking men and women. But somehow I knew they were vampires.)

The vampires told me I could not go because I could not breathe the air in their world. I would die anyway. But I told them I could wear a breathing mask, and I'd be ok. They very reluctantly agreed. They brought me something that looked like a snorkel mask and I put it on over my face.

A big group of vampires and I walked over to an indoor pool. We ringed the whole pool and held hands. We were going to jump straight in, and this would take us to the vampire world. I grabbed a hand on either side of me, looked around, and felt very grateful that there were so many people willing to help me. At some silent signal, we all jumped into the pool. I immediately fell slowly through this gloopy, viscous liquid. It was such a strange sensation. I hit bottom and looked around for someone I knew. But I turned around and faced a vampire I didn't know. And somehow, he instantly knew I wasn't a vampire. And I started to feel a lightening-bolt tingle of pain going through my body.

Because I was still in the gloopy pool and not completely in the vampire world, I was able to go back to my world. I screamed at the people above the pool to pull me out. Which they did before the vampire guy killed me. So they dragged me out and looked at me and said "Oh yeah, we should have remembered. You don't have vampire eyes. You are instantly recognizable as a non-vampire. You can't go back."  I guess vampire eyes were sort of red and glowing.

But again, I protested. I was going to go get my kids! So, I started yelling at them "No! Look! I can push my hair over my eyes and they won't be able to see my eyes!"

I started shoving hair beneath my snorkel mask and tried to push it over my eyes to cover them. My friends looked dubious. I could tell they really didn't want me to die, but they also knew they could not stop me. So, they agreed, and I jumped back into the pool. I got to the bottom and emerged into the vampire world. I walked around, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone else. Somehow, I was able to breath because after I emerged, my snorkel mask was no longer on my face. But I still kept my hair over my eyes and avoided contact with anyone.

And that's about all I remember. I was walking frantically around all sorts of places - long hallways, a large cafeteria, offices, bedrooms. I never found my kids before I woke up. I never found my vampire friends. Although I did find a very striking, mesmerizing male vampire who looked at me, knew I wasn't a vampire, but didn't try to kill me. Somehow, I had the feeling my intent search for my pups was about to be quite distracted.