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.

Everyone always asks the question, “What are babies dreaming about,” when they see them smiling in their sleep. I don’t know that answer. While some doctors won’t even attempt to answer the question, but I like this quote from a post that really has nothing to do about babies dreaming and everything about music.

I imagine baby dreams are the most pure kind of dreams – no frame of reference, no language, no major communication skills for them yet, just pure images/colors/sounds/etc

I like that answer. Pure dreams sound nice. I’d like some pure dreams. Instead, I’ve recently dreamed about losing a friend’s non-existent child and having to be rescued by Denzel Washington. (Well, the latter part of that dream wasn’t so terrible, let me tell you!) But sometimes I wake up so confused by my dreams that it feels as if I need to go back to sleep just to get some rest from the dream I just endured.

So, if babies dream pure dreams and mommies dream totally random dreams, what do toddlers dream?

Every morning, as we respond to BigBrother’s wakeup calls of either MOMMY! or DADDY! (yes, in CAPS LOCK!), we ask him how he slept. He usually, unless it was a particularly bad night, replies in some sort of positive fashion. Then we ask the question: What did you dream about last night?

MONSTERS!

Usually his answer is, “I touched a monster!” Very simply stated. No fear. Just, point blank, “I touched a monster!” When we ask if the monster was friendly, he says, that yes, monster nice. We’ve never branched out and asked if the monster was mean because we don’t want him to dream about mean monsters! Poor Buddy! We then usually follow up that question with, “What color was the monster?” (He’s recently got his colors down but we continue to work on them as much as possible so everything doesn’t revert to the automatic answer of “BLUE!”) He has always, 100% of the time, answered, “Yellow,” when asked about the monster. His shoes? Yellow. Pants? Yellow. Hair? Yellow. The more questions we ask, the sillier he acts like we are, as if to say, “Duh! He’s ALL yellow!”

Is he Big Bird?

For awhile I wasn’t really sure that he understood the question. The answer was always the same. But then he changed it up one morning following some bad nighttime storms with the answer to the question of what did you dream being, “I stopped the thunder! I stopped the rain!” Okay. So, perhaps he does get the concept of dreaming. I don’t know.

As of right now, dreaming about monsters doesn’t seem to scare him. He has on occasion, had a bad dream that we have had to respond to immediately to calm him down and reassure him that he’s safe and that we’re right there but, mostly, the kid sleeps soundly and wakes up with stories of touching monsters. Maybe he’s going to grow up and fight a monster of some kind. Or, in the thunder and rain dream, maybe he’ll be a meteorologist.

Or maybe his toddler dreams are just as random as my adult dreams. I really think I’d rather dream about yellow monsters than losing my friend’s non-existent child. Or losing my teeth. Or car accidents. Or losing my OWN children. In fact, as of late, I’d almost rather not dream. I need a peaceful sleep. Ah, that’s it. I need to dream an infant’s dreams. I need some pure dreams.

How do I order one of those up?