Nightmares & The Fire Wife

I rarely dream about anything specific to my current life. I usually dream about things from the past or totally random things that have nothing to do with anything. My favorite dreams are when I return to high school or college but the building is a mall; stores and classrooms side by side. But I rarely dream of people and events who/which are involved in my everyday, present-day life. I now know this to be a way that my brain protects itself.

Leading up to our Spring Show, I had a few dreams about the performance. Well, I’d really classify these as nightmares as they always went horribly. I think I had a total of two. Two nights ago, I had another dream about the show, though it had been over for two weeks. Again, everything went wrong. But I didn’t wake up after the show ended. And the dream, er, nightmare didn’t end there either.

On my way home from the theater, I came upon fire trucks and an old, tall church in the city that was on fire. Most of the flames were out by the point of my arrival. So, of course, as this was a dream, I made my way into the Sanctuary where I found my Husband. He was crying. So was his friend. After some discussion, I found that another firefighter to whom he was close was injured and another, one who was in our wedding, had died during an explosion in the fire. This dream went on for quite some time. I woke up with tears in my eyes.

Subconscious at work much?

In all of the years we have been together, I don’t think fire has entered my dreams in this way. I don’t know if that is in direct relation to the recent influx of fires or if it was just time for me to have that kind of a dream. When FireDad arrived home, I asked him if everyone was okay. He looked at me as if I had two heads. (But, yes, everyone is okay.) I later asked if the two firefighters who were harmed in the dream-blaze worked on the same shift. (They don’t.) When I explained my dream, he just kind of smiled at me. He knows me too well.

It’s curious, though, why I had such a nightmare now. My logical, rational, experienced fire-wife side knows that it is just because of the fact that fire has been so prevalent in our lives as of late. Plus, if you add up the years, I was probably due to dream something horrible. But my anxious, worried, loving fire-wife side doesn’t want to consider things like premonitions and omens and other such nonsense. I find it weird, really, that I’ve never had a dream of this nature when FireDad has had to dart off in the middle of the night, leaving me alone with my worried thoughts. Instead, it happened on a calm, no-fires night.

I had no such dream last night. (Though, perhaps, this was due in part to the thunder waking me up at 1:30 and 3:00. Also, we had a storm at 11:00pm which was in its full blast form at 11:34, causing our satellite to go out just one minute before Conan came on for his first Tonight Show appearance. I was sad.) I am pleased that FireDad switched with someone and is off for these three days in a row. His presence is calming and physically seeing him with my eyes is probably what I need right now. However, I know that if there is an all-hands call, he’ll be off in a flash even if he isn’t scheduled to work that day. I wonder when my next fire nightmare will be.

I think perhaps I need to start doing yoga before bed.