Just a Dream

I had an incredibly busy week last week. I had something to do every day after work, so by the time Friday rolled around, I was in serious need of a low-key, stay at home, go to bed early kind of night. I slept like a rock and woke up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle...well, maybe not the world, but at least the gym and my apartment. I spent 2 hours at the gym. I did an hour of yoga, a 20 minute run on the treadmill and about 5 minutes of stretching. Then, I came home and spent 4 hours cleaning my one-bedroom apartment. Through it all, I felt very focused and zen. My head was clear, and I thought about a lot of things. I was able to work things out in my brain that only several hours of solitude without distraction can accomplish. I didn't even have music playing while I cleaned. I just allowed myself to be alone with my thoughts, and I was feeling almost at peace.

However, last night, I was restless. I had trouble falling asleep, and when I finally did fall asleep, my dreams were haunted. I had one of those dreams. I don't know if everyone knows what I'm talking about, and it's really hard to describe. But, it's one of those dreams that you know is meaningful, although you don't know why. These dreams are different than ordinary dreams. They are somehow more vivid. In the past, these dreams have come true later. For example, I'll see someone in a dream that I've never met before, and years later, I'll meet that person. I have also had a conversation with someone in a dream, only to find out that the person I was talking to in the dream was dreaming about me on the same night. I have dreamed that someone I cared about was going through a rough time and later discovered that they had a death in the family.
Last night, I had one of these dreams, and as the conversation went on, I found myself consciously trying to remember every word. And then suddenly the person in my dream said something that I knew was very important, and I jolted awake, heart racing, thinking, "What did he say? What did that mean? What was I supposed to look at?"

My modern, logical brain rejects this entire concept. Clearly, I was just taking several separate thoughts and putting them together, and it has no real meaning other than that they were there in my head at some point in time. On the other hand, my experience with these vivid dreams tells me either that 1) the meaning will be revealed later, after I have nearly forgotten that I had the dream at all or 2) that the person I was dreaming about was also dreaming about me. I guess the cause for panic is knowing that this was somehow significant but not being able to put the pieces of the puzzle together, waking up before a real connection could be made and desperately trying to remember the details that are quickly becoming scattered fragments of what was "just a dream".