Subconscious Activity

I don't know how to preface this except to tell you I have a very active subconscious. I won't get into anything to "out there," because I don't want to start a debate, but to put it simply, I've always had very vivid dreams, deep thoughts, and other interesting involuntary brain activity. It can be a good thing, but more times than not, it's a plague.

One of my consistent brain behaviors is the presence of vivid nightmares in the presence of change and/or trauma in my life. Anytime I've had a big change or something tragic happen, I've been plagued with disturbing, yet seemingly meaningful nightmares.

It doesn't have to be negative. I was excited and looking forward to starting college, but I remember one night waking up screaming for my mom. When I was pregnant with Chloe, and when she was a newborn, I had awful dreams about the fears associated with parenthood. I even dreamed once that she came out a girl, then her "wee wee" came out after her, a sort of puzzle piece that had to be attached. And all I had was a dress. It's funny now, but at the time it was awful.

In the last weeks before my wedding, I've been suffering again, but this time my dreams are very different. They have recurring characters, but these characters aren't people from my every-day life. They're not people I interact with often.

I had a powerful falling out with a friend a few years ago, and that friend began the recurring character dreams. The friend plagued my dreams, wearing me out emotionally, and only stopped "visiting" me when amends was made.

I thought the odd dreams had ended, but soon after that, a cousin I hardly know began showing up in the dreams, telling me strange things, and talking me through stressful situations related to my wedding and even to past relationships. As a result of that, I got re-acquainted with him and he is now someone I talk to on a daily basis.

Next up was someone from my high school days. These dreams have been more complicated, and because this is a person I have contact with from time to time, and have mended fences with a long long time ago, I'm not sure how to get them out of the dreams. Last night this person walked me through the process of nearly stopping my wedding altogether.

I am sure that once the stress and planning of the wedding are over, the dreams will subside, and I'll go back to having strange and unusual dreams about DIFFERENT random people, but for now I'm left wondering what the dreams are all about. Are they random thoughts from life? Am I manifesting my anxiety for the wedding this way? I don't know.

A friend of mine suggested the brain sees things as a whole. The example she gave was that sometimes we will clean our plate even when we're full, because our brain sees the plate as a whole. She suggested my brain views my upcoming marriage as a new "part" of my life, and thus has the desire to finish or tie up all the odds and ends from this part before moving forward. She might be onto something.

Or, I might be eating too many onions at dinner. My dream sequences always seem relevant, but this time I'm just not sure what to make of them.