To sleep, perchance to dream

I felt the headache even before I was half-conscious this morning. It sat there heavily on my forehead, pressing darkly across the bridge of my nose. Two round, dull pain points marked the spot across the bones of my brows.

I'd been aware of the pressure while I was sleeping, and it made its way into my dreams. I'd dreamt I had a headache, and lo and behold, when I finally struggled into consciousness, there it was.

Did I create my own headache, dream it into existence? Or was it already there, and just picked up by my subconscious and worked into my dreamworld?

I've always had a very vivid dream-life. Sitting here today, I can still remember the recurring childhood dream I had about a pirate ship tossing about on heavy seas. And through my adolescence and twenties, even early-thirties, I had a recurring dream about my teeth falling out; and even now I can run the tip of my tongue over their sharp broken edges while the coppery blood fills my mouth.

I remember specific moments in dreams, like they actually happened. And particular words, or the way I felt. Sometimes I'll confuse a dream with real life, or start telling a friend a story, and realise actually I am opening a door to my subconscious and that this never really took place in the waking world. Or I'll see an object - house, dog, car, flower, painting - and it will give me a start, because I'll recognise it and realise I've seen it before in a dream. A situation will come up and I get the shiver of deja vue as it plays out just as it did in my sleep. I've had dreams that have come true.

And on occasion, I'll be doing something ordinary, like the ironing, or taking part in a discussion at work, and all of a sudden I'll become aware of a dream going on in the background, just beyond the horizon of my mind. Often it's a continuation of what I might have dreamt in the nights previously, and it just bobs up, like a koi breaking the surface of the lily pond, and crosses over into my conscious mind. That's a weird sensation, I can tell you.

I once had a dream about my then boyfriend, and we were just doing some stuff together, and when I woke up I otld him about it and he said Yep, I just had that dream too. And we confirmed it by checking little details with each other. That really opened the doors of my perception, to misquote Aldous Huxley. (An aside for all the other Jane Austen fans out there: did you know Aldous Huxley once wrote a screenplay adaption of Pride and Prejudice?)

I often fly in my dreams, and those are the moments I feel most powerful and capable - there was one about 9 years ago where I feel I finally articulated some kind of internal potential. I also breathe underwater quite regularly. Though for every power-filled vignette, there are an equal number of mundanities, like grocery shopping, or going for a walk, or having a meeting at work. But they're all rendered in crystal-clear detail ... like a high-resolution, super-movie-Imax-version of real life. Like acid.

I kept a dream diary for a number of years, because it felt as though everything that happened in my dreams was so vibrant, so real, so laden with symbolism, that it had to mean something for my actual, waking life. I love reading over it every now and again, because reading those dreams is like living them again.

And the point of all this musing about dreams? It comes down to this. If you ask me, I don't think we're here on this earth to do all the stuff we do while we're awake. Our jobs, relationships, homes - yes, even crafting - those are just superficialities wrapped around the real reason we're here.

People say we sleep to recharge, to process memories and emotions, and heal ourselves. It's when all kind of mysterious processes take place, not just in our bodies but in our minds, too. It's why sleep deprivation is a form of torture ... and I'm sure every new mum would agree with that view.

I say it's more than that. I think the best parts of our lives take place while we're asleep. Without sleep, what we feel is the pain of our souls screaming in anguish and dislocation, needing the balm that rest provides us, by guiding us back to the hearts of ourselves. All that other stuff is what we do to keep ourselves busy (and ok, alive and nourished and safe) in between the dream times. It's what fills up the hours before we can get back to bed.

Dreaming is where we live out our real and best lives. Where we reach the depths of our minds, and the heights of possibility that exist to us.

Dreaming, we are our true selves.

What would Jung make of this?

As the song goes, Last Night I Had The Straaaa-ngest Dream.

I dreamt there was something sinister happening in Melbourne, and that all citizens had to pack up their necessities and evacuate, at once, under the order of the police. I dreamt the trains were packed to the brim (what's new?) and the roads were choked with cars.

I dreamt I decided to stay behind and try to evacuate after the rush, because I couldn't get through the crowds. I dream-packed my suitcase and realised I had to go outside to get my little childhood toy Clowny - imaginative name, I know - from the shed, and why was he in the shed, when he's so dear to me, and shouldn't I have him inside? I dreamt my suitcase was too heavy and I had to take out all the spare change to lighten the load.

I dream-worried that looters would come through all the empty houses in the street, and that we couldn't lock the house up. I dream-purchased five new collars for the cats, with leashes attached, so we could be sure we wouldn't lose them. I was dream-proud of myself for thinking of this.

I watched the dream-aeroplanes circling the streets, checking for people disobeying the orders. They flew low over the house and I peeked out of the dream curtains as they patrolled past, almost close enough to touch. I dreamt up armed riot police scouring the streets, checking houses and sheds, and forcing people to leave and leave now.

I dreamt the stimulus payments of $900 from Kevin Rudd were actually a payment in disguise, meant to be used for this purpose of leaving town, to keep the masses quiet and controlled. I dreamt there was a big conspiracy afoot.

I dreamt there was poisonous gas in the air. I dream-ran to the car outside, our old green Torana from years ago, and got inside and locked the doors and I was worried, and there was another woman with me, and a boy from my past. As we sat inside the car the dream took form properly, and we all began to see the industrial pod floating through the air like a feather on the wind, except it was massive and shaped like a bell and had clearly just finished its trip through space.

It began to hover above us and the boy reversed the car backwards, around the lemon tree, along the kerb and out of the way of the pod, which landed on the dream street with a dream trailer attached, and there was something that we knew was going to come out of it, but we didn't know what, and our dream hearts were in our dream throats.

I dreamt that everything became clear and THIS was the reason everyone was having to evacuate, and the streets were deserted now, and the houses were empty and I was frightened for the furry babies because I didn't know where they were, and they'd be frightened too, and knowing they'd be frightened and I wasn't there to comfort them made me very, very upset.

And then, all of a sudden and without warning, I woke up, sweating.