A Shift

For the past nine or ten years, my stress dreams have primarily been about school. There are usually two scenarios I find myself in, scenarios that seem pretty generic. Either it’s the end of the semester and I’ve just realized that I haven’t done any of the required work leading up to the exam, or I’m late to class and my college or high school is massively large and I can’t seem to find the building that it’s in or I can’t run fast enough to get there in time. You know when you’re trying to run in dreams and your legs are as heavy as big stones and you end up running in slow motion – that’s what would happen.

I remember talking to my Wrangell Sentinel co-worker, Kris, about this. I thought it was peculiar that I had been out of school for a few years and yet my subconscious was still channeling my stress to that environment. Kris said, “That will change.” We had that conversation five years ago.

Well, I think it’s finally changing, the shift of my stress dreams is taking place. Lately my stress dreams have had to do with layovers, mass transportation, travel. Last night I dreamt that Scott and I were in the midst of a layover. I don’t know where we had come from or where we were going, but the layover wasn’t that long. While we were in line getting food, I got occupied in a conversation with a stranger which made me incapable of ordering when it was my turn, as if I couldn’t do two things at once. Scott was looking at me really worried because he thought we’d miss our flight. My stress dream previous was the same with a few little changes. If I’m not on a layover, then I’m running from a bus to catch a certain subway that I just barely miss.

I’m glad that my stress dreams have finally changed phases. My subconscious is finally letting go of the student version of me. Of course, if I could have it my way, my conscious self would completely let go of stress.