Dream Rules – Thoughts from August 24, 2018

Future note: I listed the rules of my dreams in this Thoughts paper. Enjoy. Okay, maybe I should supply a little bit more of an explanation. These rules represent the things I know are possible while I’m dreaming. They are things I know I can do and things I know I can’t do. I have different rules in my dreams now (at least five years in the future). These dream rules represent a more anxious time in my life. My most anxious dreams were in my younger years. I will point out dream rules that have changed.

Dream Rules

• I can’t fly, but I can float up slowly.

This still happens in my dreams to this day. It’s always something I have in case I don’t want to deal with gravity. If I need to get to something up high, I float up to it. Much of the time, I used it to get away from something or someone.

• No one ever catches me in my dreams.

I don’t get chased in my dreams anymore. When I did, I always kept just out of their reach. Keeping just out of their reach usually involved floating just above them.

• I can look in mirrors and see myself, but it is never my real self.

Looking in a mirror is not something I do in my dreams anymore. I remember I was never myself in them. When I look in the mirror these days, I know what to expect and I accept it.

• Most of the time, people represent people in my life, but they don’t look like themselves.

This still happens in my dreams. Some people look similar to themselves, but most people are strangers who reveal themselves to represent people in my life. They sometimes transform in the dream to look more like who they represent.

• I can’t yell in my dreams. If I try, my voice becomes restricted.

Yelling is not something I do in my dreams much these days. When I do, I usually wake up yelling. There was a time when I was aware of my inability to yell while dreaming. I think this represented my anxiety, which was hampering my ability to ask for help. I am a help-asking machine these days.

• If I feel like I have to go to the bathroom in my dream, I always wake up having to go to the bathroom. This has never led to wetting the bed, though.

This happened just the other night to me. I am usually looking for a place to go to the bathroom, but something or someone fowls my efforts. I have fully urinated in my dreams (although never to a satisfactory extent), and I have never urinated in bed. It just shows what a control freak I am. Even in my dreams, I am always fully aware it is a dream. My bodily functions cannot be fooled.

• I only remember colors in my dreams if the color was important in the dream.

Some of my dreams are lavish with colors. Only the colors significant to the dream get remembered when I wake up. Red is definitely a color that stands out. I don’t like the color red. It always indicates something bad.

• I can’t run in my dreams (only walk or float slowly).

This is one of those things I don’t do in my dreams anymore. I remember trying to run in my dreams and get the same response as trying to yell. I can’t do it. Running was another anxiety I was trying to avoid. My dreams are more about facing things these days.

• I often direct my dreams as if I am directing a movie.

Directing a movie is not something I want to do anymore, so I don’t direct my dreams as much. It has changed to being the writer of my dreams. I just think characters into existence and let them find themselves. Just like in writing, I know where the dream is going so I help the story develop.

• Many times, I am playing a character in my dreams.

As with not wanting to be a director, I also no longer want to be an actor. My dreams now are mainly me interacting as me. My old anxieties may come up, but my current thinking protects me from them. I can think of myself as a character, but I don’t react any differently than I do in real life.