Dreaming is Exhausting

I spent some time in an old dream last night. One that hadn’t found its way into my REM cycle for a good long while. It’s of my favorites … the one where I’m in a play and I don’t know my lines. I’ve had this dream before in various forms, but this time there were a couple of new twists. This time I had the bonus of not being able to find my script. So I had to scrounge around bookstores for a copy because I didn’t want to borrow anyone’s copy (lest they find out that not only had I not memorized my script, but I had also misplaced it). I also wasn’t quite sure which part I was playing. But somehow I wasn’t fussed about that, caused I’d narrowed it down to two roles and seemed to remember having played both parts before.

So at least I thought I knew what play I was in. I’ve done Eastern Standard twice before in non-dreamworld, playing both sides of the guppy-Peter / artsy-Drew couple (Drew in Cincinnati and Peter a couple years later in Houston). Back in dreamworld, I ended up in a used bookstore and found an overstuffed box of cards, not unlike The Relax Deck (one of my favorites), called The Zen of Procrastination.

And then I woke up a little panicky, feeling like I’d overslept and was late for something. It took me a few minutes to orient myself, realize that it was 7:30am on a Sunday morning (Way. Too. Early.) and I really didn’t have anywhere to be for about twenty-five hours.

So what the hell’s that all about? When I crawled into bed last night (10:30 on a Saturday night … wheee, I’m an animal!) I had a sense of going into the Land of Overwhelm. I haven’t visited that happy destination for a while, and really don’t feel spending much time there, as it's pretty much a busman's holiday for neurotics.

Maybe I'm having a little pre-school anxiety. Not pre-school as in the precursor to kindergarten way, but rather some nocturnal angst swirling about in my subconscious a couple months before grad school starts?

What else could I be worried about not being ready for? Hmm, let's see … Coming up with some new lesson plans for work? Saving for retirement? Making enough money to save for retirement? Having a career from which I can retire? Double-checking and signing off on a story that got chosen for an anthology before the August deadline (oh, I could do that today)? Taxes? Getting back into a regular meditation practice? Committing to writing a novel and feeling just a tad daunted by that? Choosing shows to see in Edinburgh in two weeks? Losing these extra ten pounds before Sitges in a month? Finding a gift for my brother-in-law’s 40th? Organizing this little hovel of an office so that it feels like a creative sanctuary rather than a catch-all for all the other rooms in the flat? Keeping up getting back on track with my self-imposed goal of writing 500 new words a day (not inventing new words, like sprogthoid, flibjabbing, or emylangthen, but actually scribbling something that could pass for creative writing)? Remembering to breathe?

Nah, it was probably just dream.

Now then, where did I put that Relax Deck?