Diurnal Visions & Nocturnal Vagary

I'm not sure what the word would be for someone like me. I'm up all day and for many hours of the night. Insomniac doesn't aptly describe me. Yes, there is sleeplessness, but there is not always the stress, anxiety, or worry that accompanies that state of being. I am just, for lack of a better word, awake. Although I wish I could say that all the "extra" time spent with my eyes wide open resulted in quickly executed projects, I can't.

You see, I'm a dreamer. It's one of my more prominent Piscean attributes. My head seems to always be in the clouds, woolgathering, musing, or speculating. I am prolific in my mind wanderings, yet not always profound. It's how I set my pen to paper, create a dance, or plan an event. I wouldn't be lying if I told you that I also imagine scenarios, conversations, and even travels just to see how the story will play out without influencing the outcome. I also wouldn't be lying if I told you that those same daydreams are not always fantastic. That often, they will bring me to tears or anger. Of these daily mind journeys, I do have a modicum of control.

I use them to fuel what I do. I use them to write. I use them to prepare for future interactions that could happen. I use them because I can. It doesn't mean that I am incapable of functioning in usual, daily living. Nor do I suffer from delusions of grandeur. If I did, I would probably dress nicer and be rude.

I've never understood adults that always tell children to stop daydreaming, to pay attention to the here and now. Granted, we do need to do that but aren't daydreams the source of all invention? Isn't the here and now quite awful at times?

The visions that visit me during slumber are altogether a different beast. There is a part of me that wishes I could lucid dream in my stupor, to be able to recognize and change what was happening in my unscripted and foreign nightly affairs. Yet the rest of me revels in how fucking weird they become on their own, burgeoning with the absurd and filled with a strong sense of realism that incudes scent, taste and touch that linger after I awake.

I had considered using this blog as a forum for posting these unnerving ramblings that are supposed to be the leftovers of indigestible brain stimuli. Before I published the website, I had multiple entries based upon this very facet of myself as they do often make for good entertainment. My husband is forever shaking his head at them. He dreams rarely, and sometimes I am jealous of that.

Recently, I've had two very real, very detailed dreams that I am reluctant to call nightmares.

One, my husband and I were in an old house. Not the crumbling façade of a once glorious home but more of a dilapidated and plain structure reminiscent of the boxy ranch homes of the seventies. We were standing in a cramped, sunlit nook and he handed a potted plant to me. It was still wrapped in the brightly colored foil that often ensconces the grocery store variety of vegetational gifts. The plastic, three-pronged fork still jutted high above the leaves but lacked the two by three greeting card scrawled in an unfamiliar script. The one that should say "I love you" or "Get well soon." As I held it in my hand, staring at it, a red snake raced up the plastic spike at lightening speed. It struck out at me, biting me first on the left side of my face near the hollow of my eye. It struck me again; this time biting me on my upper right arm. I felt the bites in my dream. They stung like pins digging into the skin.

This dream unsettled me. What does it mean to imagine a gift that hurts you from your husband. Hopefully nothing. Probably nothing. It renders me suspicious regardless.

A couple nights later, I dreamt that my sister and I had traveled to a place called Patagonia and when we arrived, I had started my period and had no extra clothing. We disembarked near a luxurious shopping area with outdoor and indoor stalls of décor, jewelry, and other trinkets of Indian design such as carved elephants, colorful baskets, and hammered metal bowls. I was frustrated by my inability to speak the language. I couldn't ask how to find pads and tampons, or where to buy more clothes. Cut to the two of us walking into a train tunnel to explore it near the edge of this foreign city. We entered it, chatting and laughing as we normally do. She was on one side of the narrow tracks and I was on the other. I heard a sound in the distance that startled me. I looked behind us to see something headed toward us. It was mostly obscured by dried trees and brush but I knew it was a train. I screamed to her to move before she was hit, that it was coming. We each plastered ourselves against the walls of the tunnel, waiting for the oncoming rush of steel. What actually came was a goat herder with a small wagon, leading his herd of goats. There were dozens of them running behind him. He paid us no mind, saying nothing to us as he ran by, pulling his wagon. At the back of the herd was one goat that was intrigued by us. He frolicked and romped, butting us gently to say hello before taking off to join his group again.

And then I awoke.

What in the ever loving hell was that about? Patagonia is nowhere near India, by the way. It's in South America. A beautiful mountainous region that is lush and green, not sandy, barren and hot.

My nocturnal vagaries may not be or mean more than what scientists consider to be the brain cleansing itself. I am just curious as to how a goat got in there.