slumber

The Dream:

I find myself running down a long sidewalk in a trailing white wedding dress and veil. All around me, there is construction going on. I am late for my mother's wedding. People in the streets give me strange looks.

When I arrive at the church, there's a change room that I'm ushered into and I decide to check my appearance before entering the main hall. I look at my reflection in a tall mirror. To my surprise, my long wedding dress has turned into a skimpy white nightdress that's see-through. Instead of wondering how the laws of nature could have suspended, I spent a few good moments admiring myself in the mirror and thinking of how good I look in lingerie. A nearby DC takes note of my vanity and says I'll have to change into something more appropriate before going inside the main hall.

I do the rational thing and run all the way back home to find more suitable clothing. ("Home" in all these dreams always ends up being the college residence I stayed in during my first year, even though I consider "home" IRL to be my parent's house where I grew up). Once I get to the residence, I have to climb up a whole set of stairs to get to my room on the third-floor. I end up having to pass entire groups of people, including a gym full of sweaty men, but somehow I don't seem to mind that I'm in my underwear. A part of me even likes that they're watching.

When I reach my room, I look out the window and it's snowing.

"There's no way I can make it back to the wedding now," I think. "I'll just have to call and say I was sick or something."

When I get my phone, I notice that's there's 21 unread text messages from my mother. As I read through them, it's only then that I realize that my mother is getting married to a woman. She talks about how all these years she's felt like she's been hiding who she really was, but now she can accept her bisexuality.

Later, I'm at my parent's house (in the dream, it doesn't look anything like their house though) and my mother is there in a white sweater and I remember feeling quite proud of her. I go to hug her in a warm embrace and then pester her for details ("Where did you meet this woman?" "How did you know?" "What does dad think of all this?"). She tells me she's married a Spanish woman and they're having fun exploring their identities. My father comes from behind the staircase and teases her about it, saying that this woman has become a bad influence for my otherwise overtly religious mother. He seems totally okay with all this.

Notes

Well, the first sign this was all a dream should have been the fact that my homophobic religious mother would ever get married to a woman. But okay, whatever, brain.

Yet another dream about wardrobe malfunctions, except this time I was confident and kind of enjoying it when the vast majority of dreams have been about being embarrassed and trying to find a place to hide as quickly as possible.

Also....why was I wearing a wedding dress to my own mother's wedding? Dream logic

The Dream:

Once again, I find myself pregnant in the dream world. This time I'm back at school and I've just gone to see the school guidance counsellor to see what I should do. She's a very calm and therapeutic dream character and she puts me at ease.

She tells me she should have a look at me to see if there are any complications. She takes me outside her office and towards a golden bathtub sitting at the end of the hall. She asks me to undress and sit in the tub, but only if I feel comfortable doing so in such a public place. I start removing my shoes but when I'm about to take off my jeans, the previously empty hall is now bustling with people and I no longer want everyone to see what's happening.

She tells me that's alright and that she'll meet me in a room in the basement where there shouldn't be so many people. I then walk down three flights of stairs to the basement. There are some people loitering around but within this basement there's an "inner room" which is completely empty except for a row of beds. Relieved at having finally found some privacy, I'm about to go into the room when I'm suddenly interrupted by Adam (a classmate) who asks me if I'm here for Justin Bieber's morning maths lecture. I'm horrified to realize I also happen to have a morning lecture with Professor Bieber and that I'd been skipping it in order to see the counsellor.

Suddenly the previously empty inner room turns into a classroom and there are desks with students in them and a teacher at the front writing on the board. I sit at the back of the classroom. As the teacher starts his lesson, I start wondering how on earth I wound up being pregnant in the first place. I wonder if the events that led me to be pregnant actually happened or if it was all just a dream. I (stupidly) decided it must have actually happened.

The counsellor is back again and sits behind me in the classroom. She asks me if it's alright if we continue at the back of the classroom where no one will see us. I tell her "No, Adam is my classmate and I'll be mortified if he sees me back there."

So instead I just try to pay attention to the lecture. Everyone seems to understand except for me.

Notes:
Prior to this dream, I had pretty much decided I didn't ever want to have children until I was past 30. The counsellor character sticks out to me because she was a calming presence in the midst of my anxiety. The golden bathtub is also memorable...perhaps because it's so misplaced in the middle of a school hallway?

The theme of trying to find a private place to undress but being unable to find it prevails again. I don't know what else this could mean except that it just reflects my own anxieties about being around people. In each of these dreams, I'm often trying to hide something that is under my clothes (i.e. underwear, a pregnant belly). I'm worried about people finding out about my secrets---whatever those are.

Re-occurring elements:

• the failed search for a private space
• a bathtub
• pregnancy

Dream Signs:

• I'm pregnant (duh)
• I'm also apparently back in high school
• the random bathtub in the middle of the hall