Sweet dreams are made of these

I am very busy in my sleep. I have very realistic dreams which seem to go on for hours. I know this because I remember most of my dreams. Like a film you were sort of watching while playing around on your phone. 

My dreams fall into 3 broad categories. 

• The Weird Dream
• The Adventure Dream
• The Anxiety Dream

The Weird Dream

These usually involve chums and colleagues in odd situations such as 8 or 9 of us all living together in one room (bunk beds) and trying to hide something under one of the beds from one of my colleagues. 

Or being forced to cart a load of computers up a hill so a chum could continue working whilst taking part in a work picnic. 

All seem quite normal whilst mid dream. It’s only on waking up that I go “who with the what now?”

The Adventure Dream

I often have dreams involving vampires and zombies and werewolves (oh my!), a product of my horror fandom I’m sure. Except these are never nightmares. Instead I am usually in the role of “The Hero” working with other heroic types to fight the onslaught of the monsters - Hurrah! There's quite a lot of running, chasing and hiding but I never feel terrified when in the midst of these dreams. No. Terror is reserved for...

The Anxiety Dream

There are 2 sub categories of Anxiety Dream: The "I can't keep us safe" dream and the "I am a failure" dream

The I can't keep us safe usually involves the "Bad Man" (who is never a traditional monster and always a human!) and me and unknown others are hiding from him. But the door doesn't fit in the frame anymore or the lock doesn't work or we are stuck in a tiny cupboard with no way out and he is already in the room. And then I wake up crying and sweating and not wanting to go back to sleep

I am a failure used to be fairly standard - I am doing exams again and I have no idea what the paper says because I cant read it or I don't understand any of it. Recently however, there has been a new twist.

The dream is always the same. I have failed at Maths and Physics and now the only option to me is Embroidery. Obviously. But I'm no good at it and no one will help me because I ought to know stuff but I don't. And the first assignment is to choose threads to match your hair and I can't even do that! And the lectures always clash with something else, my job or Saga. So I ask a friend to take Saga to daycare for me but he can't/won't so I have to take her to class which means I have to sit at the back and I can't hear the lecturer. I try to go and talk with the lecturer afterwards but she isn't in the Maths or Physics departments (surprise!)so I cant find her!

I know value academic achievement too much - It is obviously how I value myself along with my role in the workplace. Which of course I don't currently have. 

And Saga is a constraint- In that I can't travel too much or be away for too long. So I understand the dream. Not entirely sure why embroidery but a friend suggested it was a desire to neatly sew up life and fear I'll fall short. Which sounds eminently plausible. 

But on balance, I think I would prefer the vampires and zombies and werewolves back please.