Dreams Are My Reality

This was one of my favourite slow songs of the 80's. I'd absolutely melt if any boy invited me to dance to this song. I think I melted several times, which only increased the value of the song in my memory.

All my life I've had weird dreams that once shared with a friend became the main reason my friends thought me weird and funny. My best friend to this day still laughs at one of the dreams I told her about when I was 16. My dreams don't make sense. They're not initiated by any traumatic event nor anything realistic. One of those dreams that has my friend laughing to this day was about a fellow classmate, small in stature, who neither of us had any affection for or any type of feeling, so there was really absolutely no reason to dream about him. Yet, there he was in my dream, as I was waiting for the bus at the top of Mt. Carmel, and there he was riding the back of an outhouse on the river behind the bus station (I swear there are no rivers on top of Mt. Carmel! Nor outhouses if you're really curious).

I figured the dreams would become more realistic once I got married. After all, there's no more fantasizing about finding the perfect boyfriend.

Turns out my dreams became even more real than I imagined. About a year after I got married, when we lived in Annapolis, Maryland (a city by any means and not the countryside). I found myself waking up from a dream, and picking up the phone to call the police. About two seconds into dialing 91... I was trying to think what to tell the police officer when they answer my call. So I ran my speech through my head and it took a few seconds before I realised I just dialed the police to tell them that there's a bear riding my husband's pick-up truck across the street and he's running over the school kids because this bear hasn't mastered how to drive a pick-up truck. At this point I was slightly confused as to what I should complain about - the fact that a bear stole my husband's pick up truck, or the fact that someone was driving without a license and running over the school kids. I believe I hung up the phone fairly quick when I realised my husband has left for work already, so obviously he's got his truck with him and I wouldn't have an alibi to the police officer.

Needless to say my husband won't let me live this dream down. Since then every time I wake up mid-dream and want to share it with him, he has this smirk on his face and exclaims, "what did I do NOW?"

It was three weeks ago when I helped a friend pack and leave the country (how dare he?!), and I was seriously sleep deprived when I gave him a ride to the airport at 4am. I got back home and decided I could still sleep for an hour and a half before going to work. Later that afternoon I recounted to my husband the dream I had in that hour and a half of priceless rest.

Mybrid: "I was downtown by the Metro station, and I entered this building there, and inside was a group of young black people, and one of them seemed to know me so he shouted my name across the room. I came over and he asked how I was doing and whether I have a job for him. I had no clue who he was. He gave me a business card and I saw the name was William Smith, but I don't know a William Smith and never worked with one. He then excused himself and went to the changing room. Then the group of people were laughing at their boss who was apparently dancing across a hallway behind the glass door, and chasing a female employee back and forth down that hallway. A few minutes later, the black guy returned to the room with only a towel around his waist, and four snails on top of his bald head. So I told him, 'listen, I'm married and this doesn't impress me.'

Ybrid: "Waitaminute! What did you say he had on his head?"

Mybrid: "Snails. There were four. One pointing at each direction."

Ybrid: "OH! I see."

Mybrid: "Really? You understand my dream?"

Ybrid: "Yeah. It's the four snails of the apocalypse!"

Mybrid [with a blank stare]: "Huh?"

Ybrid [with a look of anticipation on his face]: "Ok, you gotta admit it, it's damn funny!"

Mybrid [still with a blank stare]: "I don't know what you're talking about."

Ybrid: "The four snails of the apocalypse! Have you never heard of the apocalypse and the horsemen?"

Mybrid: "I read about them in Terry Pratchet's book, and I know there's horsemen in Lord of The Rings."

Ybrid: "No! There's the one for Death, Famine, Pestilence and...I forget the fourth."

Mybrid: "I still don't get it."

Ybrid: "The snail of death! Don't you get it? Don't you just hate it when the snail of death comes crawling at you?"

Well, since that conversation my husband has recounted my dream to his family, friends and coworkers. I still don't understand it, because Jews don't have an apocalypse nor do they have horsemen related to an apocalypse. Heck, I don't even know what the word means!

But here's my husband's coworker's interpretation of my dream.

And I give to you my own husband's interpretation of my dream (which he drew on sticky notes during a management class to prepare him for the PMP exam):