Madwriter

My anxiety dreams are usually pretty typical--like I'm back in college and suddenly remembering that I haven't been to class in weeks. If I can even find the class I realize I'm hopelessly behind and am going to fail. Even realizing I'm dreaming doesn't help much: The last time, once I knew I was dreaming I thought, That means I don't have to show anyone the F on my report card!

The latest one made an odd kind of sense, though that didn't make it any less bizarre. For most of the last few years I primarily wore contact lenses, and occasionally the anxiety dream would be me wearing my glasses (the pair then being old and worn out and difficult to see through) and not being able to find or put in my contacts. Problems with allergies meant that at least for the time being I'm primarily wearing glasses again, so the anxiety dream switched: For some reason I couldn't put my glasses on.

This is where the bizarre part chimes in. At one point in my very first glasses-less anxiety dream, they were suddenly missing when I was trying to cross an intersection. Everything went blurry, as if I was staring through a thick fog or suffered from advanced cataracts. I could see a car turning in and then stop, but only the vaguest outline, and I couldn't tell whether the driver was waving me or not, and I was afraid to try crossing. Finally, someone--I don't remember exactly who, but in the dream I was with Laurie, my parents, and some friends who are students at the college I work for--took my arm and led me across. Eventually, once I was across, I was able to get my glasses back on and see perfectly well again.

This is also bizarre because my vision, while bad, isn't nearly that bad, fortunately. But it is something that's always concerned me greatly. I've had bad vision since childhood, so I tend to equate not being able to see (or see well) with helplessness--and my brain is incorrigibly symbolic when it comes to such things.

When I'm particularly worried about physical losses from getting older, for instance, I start dreaming of teeth loosening and falling out. In an upcoming situation where I'm going to be "stuck" for awhile with only very few options to un-stick myself, it shouldn't surprise me that I start dreaming about not being able to see. Especially, to drag out my brain's metaphor, if I'm having trouble "seeing" more ways out of the situation.

Hmmm--that last bit sounds incredibly ominous, but it's not really anything you need to be concerned over. It's a problem more of dastardly inconvenience than mortal terror. And, as the dream pointed out to me practically to the point of shouting, I have friends and family to help me through during the "helpless" part of it.

Anyway, being a writer, no matter what happens to me--in the real world or otherwise--I tend to find ways to tie it back into writing sooner or later. This is the sort of thing that usually finds its way into poetry, where symbolism tends to be a more welcome occupant than in my prose. If I have to go through a bad dream I can at least wring some useful words out of it.