Last Night in Bed

No this is not a sexual activity report but rather a recounting of two amazing dreams I had last night.

The first dream took a lot of energy. It was what are known as "Work Oppressive Dreams" but the problem is that this no longer is my "work" and hasn't been for over 20 years.

I was once again Coordinator of Gifted Education for the Glenview Public Schools and I was having to defend my program, my behavior, and my stand on Gifted Education to all the nay-sayers I came across in my close to 20 years in the role of teacher, consultant to teachers and parents, and administrator of the TAG Program.

For the most part my relationships with students and parents were wonderful, it is the administrators at all levels and district politics that caused me the most grief (with the exception of only a few fellow administrators.) So we are talking about close to 40 years (20 in the role, 20 retired from the role) and I am still having nightmares about my experience.

I finally woke up and while going to the bathroom repeatedly said aloud, "Why are you having this dream? You do not need to have this dream! Stop having this dream." It worked and when I fell asleep, I had a more frightening dream.

Details of exactly where I was and what was happening were not clear. But I would compare it to a usual day, surrounded by family and friends, when suddenly something like a nuclear attack took place. The earth shook, explosions were loud, and a huge cloud of "whatever" slowly came towards us and engulfed us.

I knew I was going to die and slowly lost conscientiousness. Next part of the dream we are not dead but alive in this devastated environment, no sun, dark sky but during the day. Thick air not pleasant to breath without difficulty. No electricity, nothing taking place around us, not much food.

I awoke from this dream with a fright and lie there for a while, half asleep and half awake, thinking what would I do today if I was involved in some type of major calamity and had to escape the condo?

Would I fill my pockets with the twenty dollar bills I have stashed away in case the ATM's go down in a global space war, would I take a flashlight and batteries, would I take water and/or food and how would I carry everything?

Would my cell phone work? I would need to make sure I took my IDs and medications. I guess the cats would be on their own. What about clothing, to keep cool or to keep warm depending on the season.

Should I put together a "survival" kit or box so I could just grab it on the way out the door?

Finally I drifted off into an unbothered sleep until my alarm woke. I was exhausted but happy to be alive and looking forward to beginning my boring, usual, mundane day.