I had the craziest dream last night. It was about a chest of drawers and for some reason it was covered in my friend’s daughter’s hair. I have no idea what that can even mean. Where do our brains go when we sleep? I had the flu the last 10 days or more, taking Nyquil and Robitussin by the capfuls every day and night. I usually avoid cold meds, but this flu was hard to get through and I was desperate. Maybe the dream was residual from the drugs. Hard to say since it had been over 24 hours since I had imbibed. I haven’t seen the friend nor her daughter in quite a few weeks, and she hasn’t been on my mind, so I wonder why this image of the wild and curly hair stuck to the drawers came to me? It felt as though the little girl had gotten her hair caught on the drawers and pulled it out. Ouch!
Not much more to the dream than that, and I don’t know why I tell you about it other than I keep thinking about it. I keep thinking about it and then wondering how our brains pick stuff up and then filter it into folders in our dream section. I’m no specialist on any of this, but I figure dreams come from the part of our brains where our imaginations are at work. Maybe the dream filter is like an artist studio trash barrel—bits of fabric, and painted canvas, and scraps of paper, magazine pages torn for collage, papier mache body parts, rolled up empty tubes of paint, dressers I haven’t finished painting, and friend’s daughter’s hair that is always creatively braided. That’s what I picture my brain’s trash barrel filled with.
Our brains come up with so many things besides dreams though. They come up with opinions and new ideas and emotions and memories. And our brain even mixes these up together making a potion called personality. My husband and I have an ongoing argument about whether or not people change. Our personalities seem to stay the same, but I believe we do change as we learn, as we grow older, as we have to adapt to things. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have new ideas, possibilities or people in our lives. New ideas come from experiences, sometimes, good and bad experiences. We see the world in a new way, unless we steadfastly refuse to think about how everything around us affects us.
DimeStories, for instance, is changing it’s day of the week and venue. It was a group decision, not just one person, and because of various circumstances. I knew some people would hate it and there would be backlash. I wasn’t surprised when we immediately had people who were not happy about the changes. I remember the many times in the past when I had to change the venue because of the circumstances. I’m a people-pleaser and for every person that complained I wanted to fix it. I couldn’t, of course, or rather I had fixed the venue situation, but some people just don’t like change so there was no pleasing them. I ended up leaving DimeStories after all the frustration because it just wasn’t fun any more. No fault of theirs, but because I didn’t know how to let go of the burden of pleasing everyone which is truly an impossible task. But this time, I’m back trying to help out with all the behind the scenes details with DimeStories. The usual grousing occurred when I announced the change. I went into my usual people-pleasing mode and wanted to fix what I had already fixed but now seemed more broken. There’s a part to change that I never noticed in the past or I forgot about—all the people that like the change and share their positive attitude. Years ago, I would have focused on the negative and wanting to please the people who can’t be pleased. But I think I’ve changed, because now I’m focusing on the people who are glad that it’s back in their neighborhood, and others who like the new day of the week.
I want everyone to be happy, and enjoy DimeStories, and not too far in the future, I have a feeling the change will be forgotten and we will have moved on to some other issue. With a little imagination, and a shift in perspective, we can enjoy more and grouse less.
I still have no idea what this has to do with my dream, other than maybe it’s our imagination that helps us see things in a different light than we saw them before. Like figuring out how to patch a bathroom wall without having to redo the whole bathroom. I just bought this fun wallpaper. Maybe if you don’t like the new day and place of DimeStories, you’ll at least get a laugh when you use my guest bath.
Hope to see you on Wed, Feb 8 at The Book Catapult for DimeStories, new time, new place. And pie.
