While researching places to submit my writings I came across this magazine, Mask Magazine, who has submissions open currently for their dream issue. My pieces don’t fit this theme, but it got my brain turning. They said something about how dreams can parallel the real world, “anything that evades the slender confines of reason,” and it made me think about a dream that I have been dwelling on for the past few weeks.
To set the stage, I had an afternoon nap. My naps are generally between two to four hours. I can not function without an obscene amount of sleep, if I get less than nine hours for a few days in a row I will crash and be unable to wake up. In a semi conscious state I can know I have to wake up but I can’t even sit up no matter how much I will myself to. This usually goes on for a long time. I know it goes on for a long time because my room is really bright so I can sense the sun setting or rising and how long its been since the sun has set.
With all my slightly weird sleeping habits it actually makes it so I am aware when I am dreaming. I rarely influence what I am dreaming about and don’t usually have the ability to. In turn I remember what I dream about fairly easily. This is a form of lucid dreaming.
This particular dream happened in an afternoon nap. In my dream I was at a professor’s house. The house was clearly off of a pinterest picture. We were in the kitchen, there was a white subway tile style backsplash. The room was overwhelmingly white with marble counters and a cutting board top island. The island had black metal barstools like the ones at my best friend’s house.
I sat on one of the stools surveying the ornate confections stacked like it was an expensive afternoon tea in London. There was a party going on. I don’t know who was there but the only person I was talking to is the professor. I don’t remember why but we were laughing and joking and ended up leaving the kitchen and got in a car. For some reason we were driving in a grassy field that had the little white spherical flowers from clover plants. I actually looked up the flower I was envisioning and found out that it belongs to clovers.
For some reason I was laughing like crazy and opened the door of the car and fell out. He parked the car and came around laughing too, the hunched over type of laughing. At this point, just from behavior, I feel like we were drunk in my dream. He pointed at his pants while recovering from laughing showing me that he had ripped the outer seam. I looked at my pants and we laughed harder because I had the exact same rip in my pants. I stood up and we were casually touching each other, like him grabbing my arm, and bumping into one another while still laughing. It was casual intimacy.
I know this is an inappropriate thing to bring up but I have been dwelling on the dream. The professor in my dream has had a weird dynamic with me in real life too which is what probably inspired the dream. Nothing unprofessional has happened but it is a very tense connection.
The first few weeks of class he said hello expressly only to me every day and makes really intense eye contact often. Not one to back down from a challenge, I held the eye contact like an absolute idiot. Every time I tried to participate in class he would ignore me even if I was the only one volunteering to answer or if I had a question, this is what was the most confusing part to me. Yet online he would praise me and say weird things that contradicted what happened in person. One class period he asked what my name was which made it more confusing to me because he had used my name previously.
I am not going to delve into really specific scenarios, but after talking about it with a couple of my friends they agreed that something weird was afoot. They said that maybe I remind him of someone, maybe I give off a weird vibe and for the love of God, stop holding eye contact.
I knew after a certain point I would have to, I was getting uncomfortable enough it was necessary, but I felt like it was my only card in this challenge and I didn’t want to be the one to back down.
I ended up giving in, I came to class and didn’t even look at him when he said hello like he did every day. I slouched over on my desk and didn’t even look at the boards while taking notes. I didn’t raise my hand once for a couple days. I was so pissed that I had lost but was glad that after I conceded defeat he backed off. He started letting me participate in class and kept his notes less personal. He still says hello which I don’t mind.
We don’t talk outside of specific comments to aid class conversation and the day of this dream I had we talked for the first time for a couple minutes. It was an appropriate conversation about class relevant topics and I guess I dwelled on it enough to have a vivid dream with him in it.
There were a few weird parts in my dream that I would never consciously allow. I was drunk at a party where the only person I knew was a man I don’t actually know at all. After a bad experience, I would never find myself in that position. I also allowed him to casually touch me which is a big hell no, I don’t let anyone touch me unless it is specifically for a reason like you have a bug on your back, or shaking someone’s hand. Living in Hawaii made me better about people casually hugging but that is less of a thing in Washington.
My dream seemed like a more intimate reflection of our in class relationship, borderline not okay.
Ashley Grace 