Reoccurring Dreams

Dreams do fascinate me. I remember quite a few a night, due to having a crappy sleep. I wake up often and therefore interrupt my sleep cycle and remember my dream.

I had one recently where we, my spouse and I, were in an office building and there were these monkeys. I went up to pet one. My spouse said ‘Don’t pet wild animals’. I said, ‘It can’t be wild in here. It must be a robot or android monkey.’ And so I pet it. Turns out I was right. We then got a tour of the building which also had baby pandas. My spouse went down a slide into their enclosure to pet them. And I thought, well, so should I. They are adorable. I go down the slide except instead of a wee panda it is a massive brown bear leaning over me. And I wake up.

So that made no sense. Try to interpret that. Most of my dreams don’t even have me in them. Most of them are adventure dreams where I am a character on a quest or solving a mystery or have some sort of magical power. I read a lot of fantasy. I am all cool with that influencing my dreams. On more than on occasion that has influenced my writing actually. Some fantastic dreams. And 99% of my dreams are awesome. I rarely have a dream that even bothers me a little bit. The exception is sleep paralysis nightmares and migraine induced dreams, which are vivid, intense and can be nightmares.

However, I have also had this re-occurring dream and it is just nasty. Re-occurring dreams one does have to wonder if the old brain ball is trying to convey a message. But if it is it gets lost in transition it seems.

So the dreams.

Is gross.

I have to go to the bathroom. There are three rows of stalls. Plenty of choices. I am always with someone. This last one I was with my mom. She chooses one and off she goes. I go to choose a stall and it is filthy inside. Just repulsive. Overflowing, disgusting water and the floor is wet with wadded paper in the toilet. Yeah, I’ll pass on that. So is the next. Similar anyway. Still vile. And the next. And the next. And I find myself trying to figure out which one is the least unpleasant to go in. Which level of foul can I tolerate to go to the bathroom in? I usually get to the point of choosing before the dream ends. As in I go in and close the door, trying to figure out how I going to manage to go and then wake up.

Let’s see what some dream interpretation has to say about this re-occurring batheroom dream of filth.

1. “If you see a filthy bathroom, represents that you are behaving badly and need to correct it. You have to change your ways because people are noticing. You may want to look at ways you can clean up your act. ” Dream Dictionary.org
2. “Basically, bathroom dreams may be addressing your need to relieve yourself emotionally and/or psychologically. You may be dealing with a dirty, messy, toxic or crappy situation in waking life or are under a lot of stress. A public bathroom or restroom may suggest the dream is dealing with your social or professional life… A dirty bathroom may be sign you are repressing a lot of negative emotions or you may be dealing with a lot of negative energy or negative, toxic people in waking life.” Dreams Cloud
3. “To dream of a bathroom represents a cleansing process. Confronting issues, negative emotions, or negative life situations. To dream of dirty bathroom represents difficulties during a cleansing process. A sign that more effort is needed to confront mental and emotional problems or that a current situation is unsupportive of progress.” Dream Bible
4. “For a young woman to dream of a bathroom, foretells that her inclinations
   trend too much toward light pleasures and frivolities.” Psychologists World

So I suppose if the Internets are to be believed I am behaving badly(1)? Or I have emotional issues that need cleansing and am very negative… due to my emotional problems likely(2,3). Or I am frivolous and pleasure seeking (4)? Maybe that is my bad behavior?

The second scenario… more likely in my case… any time of the month or year or decade. Stress, negativity, emotional problems… yeah.

Clearly, not a concise art form is it. Pick a site, any site, and choose whichever interpretation you want that suits your needs at the time!

So what does it mean then? Does any dream Mean anything at all? Or is it just the brain consolidating memories and information from the day?

I used to have a re-occurring nightmare from a trauma I had when I was a teen. I called it my Dr. Hyde and Mr. Jekyll dream. In it a man would appear perfectly normal in some situation. Could be any scenario at all. Past times. Present times. Me, or a character me. But then we would be alone and he would Change. Become evil him. His eyes would become malicious. His smile twisted. I would get a horrible feeling of wrongness. I would ignore it. And then he would attack. Lunge usually. And I would wake up. It is unmistakable this dream. What it was based on. My incapacity to trust a man that betrayed me in a specific way; thought he was one way and he certainly became another. That is another story though. Point is I had those nightmares well into my 20’s. I think the last time I was actually 30. I knew where they stemmed from. Perhaps my subconscious telling me I wasn’t over the initial incident like I thought. Or that I had a mistrust now that I didn’t before. So some dreams Mean something.

So what about dirty bathroom dream? Any hidden reveals I can find for this re-occurrence. Clearly any dream interpretation is best done by oneself, as one does know oneself and ones dreams.

To be honest I think it is a combination of a normal stress dream… a dream where you are faced with an impossible task you have to complete and can’t and a low-self worth dream. Where only I get the dirty bathroom. There is always other people already in the bathroom and they get clean ones. There is someone with me and they get a clean one. Only I can’t find one. Instead of waiting for a clean one, I try to make a value of which level of foul I can tolerate. Which I do a lot in life with low self-worth. What do I deserve… little. In my mind.

Or it is about dirty bathrooms. And how gross that is. Could be brain fluff. Hard to say.

I have also had a reoccurring dream where I find money. Like a buck or 20 bucks. Dream interpretation: I am poor and it thrills me to find change in a dream. It is quite disappointing to realize those are dreams.

Anyway, brain fluff or meaningful dreams are brain food for inspiration. I have had a lot of ideas spring forth from interesting dreams. Clearly not dirty bathroom dream. But certainly a vast array of others far more entertaining than 50 dirty toilets you can’t use.