Photo by Tracy Fuentes
For this month, we wanted to take our readers to Dreamland. Dreams are quite important in our lives, as we experience them nightly for hours at a time. Here Kindergarten contributors explore some of their dreams – the good, the bad, and the in-between.
Unfortunately, my recurring dreams are more negative in nature and definitely not a dreamland anyone would enjoy visiting regularly. Rats frequently visit in my dreams, as my mind brings me images of rats infesting my home or attacking my face. I wake up feeling disturbed and uncomfortable, paranoid that there may be rats in my room or home. I’ve never had a traumatic experience with rats personally, so the reasoning behind the frequency of rats in my dreams is a mystery. I have not found any connections between the rats of my dreams and what may be happening in my reality. Regardless, the dreams transformed rats into my number one fear. I have no idea how these dreams could be interpreted, but if anyone has advice on how to stop these dreams and move onto a new dreamland, it would be much appreciated.
I haven’t had many blissful dreams lately, if any. They aren’t good, they aren’t bad. They’re just kind of there. Sometimes the dreams are such insignificant little tasks that I can’t decipher them from memories. For example, I’d fall asleep thinking about how I meant to reach out to someone and I’d end up dreaming about texting them to catch up. Then I wake up believing I texted them only to realize days later that I never sent out a message. Other times, my dreams are like, yes it could totally happen, but it’s a bizarre case scenario if it were to happen. Once, I had a dream that my neighbors slashed all four of my tires which has low chances of happening but not impossible. Then somehow when I started my car the next morning to go to school, a warning popped up on my dashboard indicating that all four tires were flat. However, it was definitely just from the changes in weather as no evidence of slashing was found. I have too many dreams like that where something about the dream is partially true concerning real life… Not enough to be psychic, though!
In an increasingly scientific/tech-focused world, dreams have seemingly lost their spiritual significance. As much as I’d like to be convinced that dreams are just a spew of neural activity, I can’t shake the feeling there is a metaphysical component to them. I believe dreams are a manifestation of our unconscious mind, our most vulnerable and hidden state. A month ago, I was attending my first academic conference and the night before my presentation I experienced a psychologically terrifying dream. It was me, sometime in the late future, being interviewed by a late-night talk show host. All was seemingly well, but then the questions became more and more intrusive. Questions about my regrets in the past, my darkest secrets, and sensitively dark topics. I felt completely stripped bare in front of an entire audience of anonymous dark figures. As deep fear began to set in, I began to melt and lose my form. My legs were gone, then my torso and chest, until I became nonexistent and the talk show host had somehow assumed my form. My 7:00 am alarm went off and I woke up in a state of panic trying to understand what the dream meant. Looking back, it was definitely a manifestation of my imposter syndrome in academia.
My dreams are either horrific nightmares or just completely random and senseless – there is no in-between! When the pandemic first began, for weeks nonstop every single night I had nightmares of my loved ones dying. I would wake up sobbing with heart palpitations. So I am thankful for my “random” genre of dreams. Just a couple weeks ago I had a dream that my family won a billion-dollar lottery, and for some reason, the cops were going after us. We were trying to escape to Canada, and to do so we boarded this really weird-looking rollercoaster (because everyone knows rollercoasters are the best mode of transportation). The seats were little pods with electronic desks and it looked like the ride just spun in circles. But as the coaster was five minutes away from “departure,” I look back and guess who I see. HARRY STYLES. I’m not even that big of a Harry fan! Tell me why this man makes eye contact with me, smiles, and says “Were you at the Vegas show last week?” and I have a flashback of being at a Harry concert with my sister (that literally never happened). I shout “YES!!!” and begin shrieking in a weird high-pitched sound and crying because he remembered me. He looked so weirded out. I woke up laughing!
I rarely remember my dreams. The ones I do remember are very emotionally charged, and they’re usually a 50/50 split of positive and negative dreams. Recently, I had one dream that really stuck with me. In the dream, I reconnected with a former friend, and the reason it was so significant was because our friendship had ended horribly years prior. Long story short, high schoolers are mean, so after the friendship ended, she was just straight up cruel to me for months on end. It got so bad she was eventually written up for bullying, but nothing really changed until high school ended. I realize that there are some things I could have done differently in the friendship, but ultimately, I didn’t deserve the way she treated me. I remember feeling betrayed and absolutely heartbroken by just how brutal she was. I remember the sadness transforming into anger, and it took a long, long time, but eventually, that faded away too.
In reality, the entire situation seemed like a bad dream after high school ended. I had not thought of her in a very long time, so I was really confused about her appearing in my dreams again after so long. The part of the dream I remember most vividly was the apology. She apologized for how she treated me after it ended, and then I woke up. I felt a familiar, dull ache deep in my chest. The heavy feeling subsided as I went about my day, but I still think about this dream from time to time and how it made me feel. I think I’ll have to accept that deep down, a part of me is still hurting, even if it’s just a little. I never got an apology, and even though I say I don’t care anymore, I think I might still subconsciously be holding out for that.
Kindergarten 