Grandma Henke

For the most part I love dreams.   I love having them and I love hearing about other people’s dreams … for the most part.

There are some dreams that stress me so much that I wake up exhausted.   I hate the kind of dreams where everything is crazy and wild and jumbled and makes no sense … where I spend what seems like all night, although I’m sure it is not all night, trying to solve something that cannot be solved.  

Another kind of dream I hate are the ones where I may or may not like the dream but I sort of wake up … but not really … just enough that I try to manipulate it to what I want.    Sometimes I try over and over and over to get it to a good ending or I lay there after I wake up and think “if I’d only done this or that …”    Not restful.

Another dream that isn’t good is the terror kind that wakes me up wondering if it was a bad omen of some kind.    You know the kind that makes you want to get up and check on everybody or call someone in the middle of the night to find out if they are okay.   Your heart is pounding, you are sweating, and you can’t quit thinking about it?

I have had nightmares lately where I actually scream so loud Lynn has to wake me up.  The last one I was trying to spit on someone like a “Jack Bauer” type a guy who had given me an impossible ultimatum.    Lynn thought I was choking instead of trying to spit.   It was a good thing my mouth was so dry from sleeping with it hanging open so that he didn’t get an unexpected shower.    Those kind don’t actually bother me because when he wakes me up it makes me laugh to think about it.   I especially love the ones where I am trying to scream for help as loud as I can and it sounds like no sound is coming out so I scream louder when actually the first time was loud enough to wake the dead.   Then was my famous Zion’s Canyon dream when I thought somebody had hitched up to our trailer and was towing us away and I screamed bloody murder in the middle of the night.

Then there are the dreams you think make sense … until you wake up and they didn’t make any sense at all.     Or the ones where you realize you forgot to get dressed, or do homework, or go to work.   I used to dream I climbed a high sphere of stairs and then suddenly realized they were tiny little stairs and I was up on a high platform and didn’t dare go back down.   

Then there are the dreams where I seem to solve some kind of problem that actually helps me to think something through in real life that needs solving.   I like those kind too.    Sometimes, though, I try to make one of the unsolveable dreams into one of these kind and it drives me nuts.

I love the dreams when I can walk or fly in the air and nobody else can.  It always astonishes everyone except me.   I usually think to myself, “why do I keep forgetting I can do this when it is so dang fun?”

I don’t like dreams where I am lost or can’t find something or someone.    I don’t like that feeling either awake or asleep.

Have you ever dreamed you spent all night cleaning, or sewing, or whatever projected you needed to do and then woke up and nothing is done?    Talk about disappointing!

And I still remember dreaming that I had to go to the bathroom really bad and kept putting it off and finally got up and went to the bathroom … and sweet release … only to find out I was still asleep in bed.   That happened when I was 9 months pregnant with my 2nd baby and I so wanted to blame it on my water breaking!    I woke up screaming “Get out of the bed!   Get out of the bed!   Get out of the bed NOW!”    Poor man.

One time when Lynn was Bishop I dreamed that we were standing in front of an empty casket trying to decide which one of us had died … the people were coming to a viewing and we didn’t know which one of us had to get in the casket … weird, huh?   I guess I figured we didn’t see enough of each other?     Another time I dreamed he had secretly married all the widows in the ward so he could take care them easier … poor guy woke up and was in so much trouble!    Or the time I dreamed the stake president came to sleep over but Lynn forgot to tell me he was coming.   We went to bed and in comes President Goodwin in his jammies and climbs in bed with us!   He said he was trying to help Bishop’s and their wives communicate better?   Go figure!

I look forward to dreams about people I love who have passed away.    Sometimes the dreams are just normal dreams where we are doing things together and it is as if they haven’t passed away.    I usually wake up feeling pretty happy and like I’ve got in a good visit.    Rarely do I wake up sad from one of those kinds of dreams … except last night when I dreamed Mom, Aunt Lou, Ann, and I went to an opera and Mom wouldn’t sit in her own seat and insisted on squeezing in my seat with me.    I was getting really irritated at her because her hair kept getting in my face and I couldn’t see.   Finally I woke up and found that the dog was on my pillow with me!    I felt bad I’d been so irritated at Mom!   

Sometimes you just have to wonder how you come up with some of them … why people from years and years ago are in them … how could these thoughts possibly be tucked away in some long forgotten memory bank?      They are kind of fascinating, don’t you think?