...in a little rowboat to find ya'...

i had a three hour break between jobs yesterday so i took advantage of some much-needed naptime. i cuddled into my bed with my little doggy and dozed for a couple of hours. this particular mid-afternoon napportunity routinely provides for some of the most bizarre dream content and yesterday was no exception. i tend to dream so vividly that i feel as though i am awake throughout and hardly wake up rested, but the dreams are generally so much fun that i don't really care. in yesterday's dream, i spent the vast majority of my time with a bunch of people whom i knew well in the dream but are not identifiable to me in my awake life. one of our primary tasks as a dreamgroup was to search for a treasure that was allegedly hidden under some floorboards in a building that appeared to be merrifield hall (for those few of you who are familiar with this building where i spent the vast majority of my college days). but there were a few bars (pubs, not prisons) in some of the rooms and at the end of the hall was a room that was apparently someone's bedroom with a small window and some old dude who appeared to be looking for a better bar kept peeking in. after several attempts to hammer through the floor to find the treasure, one guy became frustrated and began to jump up and down, stomping on the hopeful site. when he did this, a board came loose and flipped up in the air, revealing a wooden box full of cash (it's very cheesy 80's youth cinema, i know. like something that would have happened to the creepy ugly kids in goonies) which we all shared. there were other things in the box but i don't know what they were, i was counting. my count revealed that my new-found wealth was more than enough to pay off my student loans and even enough to "start over". imagine my delight! i was tearful with relief. for a few moments i was so free to do whatever the hell i wanted to do. but of course, i had to wake up eventually, despite my total lack of interest in doing so. and when i woke up i had those lingering moments of contentment and joy. it took me a few moments to trace that feeling back to the financial relief of my dreamworld. after that i wasn't so joyful anymore.

so my question to my brain today... in my dreams i can concoct the most bizarre, surreal, paradoxical conditions and situations. there are bars in college classrooms, i can speak spanish fluently, people are flying through the air on motorcycles, hidden treasures are real... in some of my dreams i have been unafraid of things that paralyze me in real life (bugs, guns, large bodies of water)... so why? why, why, why? must i always carry the emotional burden of debt into my dreams. no matter how much of reality i leave behind when i close my eyes... this one thing remains. will there be no relief ever?? certainly there won't be in my awake life, but just once i would like to leave that behind when i travel through wormholes in a volkswagon bug to the grand tetons at jackson hole, wyoming to meet a wizard who is knitting me a new sweater and introduces me to the princess who speaks farsi and offers me 12 million dollars. just once i would like to be able to say, in farsi, no thanks, i'm good.