My six-year old daughter has been having recurring nightmares for the past two weeks. Which also means she has been waking me up each night, multiple times. I started bribing her with Starbursts if she would stay in her bed all night. This has not been successful. I found this article yesterday morning: Monsters Under the Bed? What Your Kids' Nightmares Really Mean. A few ideas helped me think of new ways to help my daughter with her nightmares, and ended up helping me understand one of my own.
Last night, I was jolted awake after endlessly attempting to put my mother's cat outside of her front door, (this is an outdoor-used-to-be-homeless-huge-brute-that-my-mom-started-feeding-one-day-to-be-nice-and-it-never-went-away cat), and finally after my huge exertions, it went outside reluctantly, turned right around, and defiantly sprang back inside the house - directly over my head.
Of course, I immediately thought of the article I read yesterday about nightmares. I had to determine what my dream could mean. It had to mean something since I was completely distraught with my heart pounding intensely when I awoke.
I decided my dream must have originated in my current intense feelings of stress and irritation regarding a grant I have been working on - a grant with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I have been researching here and there, but procrastinating the actual writing of the grant, trying to forget about the huge pressing amount of work it would entail, avoiding it because I am so tired and busy with the kids,... but it has continued to bounce back - in a nightmarish way.
I think that must have been it.
Unfortunately, in my dream, I fell backwards and screamed when the cat charged me and jumped over me. Fell down. Completely. I don't think I will dwell long on the meaning of that part of the dream. I don't like to think of myself as being bowled over - by a cat or by my volunteer work.
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