I feel like sleep keeps getting harder, or at least, sleeping consistently. It's been that way since the start of the pandemic. I know when I'm getting good sleep because I have more dreams. Unfortunately that good sleep sometimes only comes if I can sleep in. Maybe for this reason, dreams are more vivid and easier to remember.
Dreams are already a strange phenomenon, because they're real feeling constructs of you interacting with others and in places that you can describe. Time doesn't always make sense, because people are different ages, as are you, or you're in a place in a time that you weren't actually. In the last decade or so, I've also felt like I could change the outcome of the dreams, or actions of people in them, but I'm not sure if I know in the moment that it's a dream. I've definitely had some of the typical dreams, like being naked when I shouldn't be, or can't get the brakes to stop the car I'm driving. I haven't had the teeth falling out or being chased dreams probably since my 20's though.
Then there are the things that are more unique to me. I've written a hundred times about being on the radio and having dead air because I couldn't find the next song to play (they weren't on computers back then!). I've often wondered why that one was recurring. I've theorized that it's because I left that career early into it, but I'm not sure that was ever a regret. I had a lot of rapid success, and when I realized what it really was, I bailed by choice. Maybe it's more about the performance aspect of the scenario, and I have broader concerns about failure to perform... something.
The dream scenario that keeps popping up though in the last year or two is the moving in or out of a dorm scenario, to go back to, or resume school. The context varies a lot, where sometimes I just didn't finish school, or I did but I didn't at the same time, which makes no sense. Sometimes I'm a resident assistant, and sometimes I'm not. That part actually makes sense to real life, because I suppose it's a little like being a manger of people. I never have a roommate. Often I'm looking for friends to meet up with for dinner, and I can't find them. There have been romantic encounters as well, and these range from completely fictional people to celebrities (most recently Florence Pugh, because why not?). But it's never in the middle of an academic year, it's always at the start or end, or both. I'm either getting settled or packing up, or both. Last night's "episode" involved me moving out, and I was telling someone that I had barely been in the room all year. I had a ton of stuff though, and I was willing to throw most of it away instead of moving it.
If dreams reflect things that are on your subconscious, I struggle to understand what this is about. Sometimes dreams are based on unimportant shit that you're thinking about, much as when you're awake and thinking about random stuff. But when something repeats, that's something different. I think much of my college experience was marginally suboptimal, and I appreciate more than ever how challenging it was socially, because ASD. But I also remember how it was at times energizing. Coming back in the fall, early for RA training, or to the house rental, that was exciting. I might still be wishing that I did things differently, but I also know that I didn't see or understand myself and the world the way that I do now.
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