The Girl of My Dreams

To those of you who are new readers to my blog, please allow me to preface the following statement with a disclaimer that I'm really not a crazy person ... really, I'm not. I am, however, rather odd when it comes to certain dreams that I have when I am sick enough for my body temperature to climb above 100 degrees. Every single time my temp is above 100, I dream about wolves ... more specifically, I dream that there are wolves standing outside the door to my house trying to get in and eat me. I've had that particular fever dream for as long as I can remember, going all the way back to when I was a kid snuggled under a mountain of fleece blankets in my tiny little bedroom with the mustard-colored walls in the house I grew up in. I remember having the wolfy fever dream when I was a kiddo ... I remember having it when I was a teenager ... I remember having it when I had children of my own (and they remember times when I had it as well, I might add, because it completely freaked them out when I woke up talking about wolves trying to break in the house) ... I even remember having it not too long ago when I ran a fever due to an ear infection. I remember having the dream countless times over the years, and I remember the specific details of the dream quite well. Even as I'm writing about it, I can picture the wolves from my dream ... three gray wolves (one always has a black tail and one has white around its eyes), four brown wolves (one has a white spot on its front right paw, and one has blackish spots on its chest) and one white wolf (completely white from the tip of its nose to the end of its always swishing tail). The furry beasts are growling and snarling ... except for the white wolf ... the white wolf with the bright blue eyes never makes a sound in my dream. Just think of the thought my life-saving head doctor is going to put into analyzing that maybe mildly crazy revelation, eh?

I've long been fascinated by dreams, and no, not just because of my feverish wolf dream. I remember a lot of my dreams, or at least I used to anyway ... I think perhaps the meds I take have toned down how much I recall from my nightly dream adventures these days. Unless, of course, there are fevers and wolves involved ... duh ... I remember all of those. There's a name for the scientific study of dreams, oneirology ... and yes, I Googled it to be sure I had the correct spelling since that isn't a word I tend to use on a frequent basis. Those of you who know me know that I can't just look up a word to check its spelling without reading the definition of said word. Those of you who know me very, very well know that once my curiosity is peaked on a certain word or subject, I can spend hours ... okay, okay ... I can spend days or weeks researching and studying about it. In the case of oneirology, however, I spent only four or five hours this morning gleaning as much knowledge and information as I could about dreams and what they mean. And for as much as I read, I can tell you this ... there are as many different beliefs about the meaning of dreams as there are people on earth. When I type the word "dreams" into the Google search box and hit enter, I am instantly apprised that there are "about 432 million results ... holy moly biscuits and gravy with a side of overwhelming to boot ... that's a lot of info, friends.

Among the sites I visited in my very limited quest to learn more about dreams, I did discover that there seems to exist at least a couple of commonalities of thought among the oneirologists of the world (I must say I don't think I've ever used the word oneirologist in my entire life, by the way). It seems there is a general consensus that dreams occur involuntarily during the REM phase of sleep when resting brain activity is at its highest, and that most people have three to five dreams per night and the dreams that are most vivid and most remembered are the ones that occur just prior to waking. I could write for a month about some of the other fascinating discoveries I made while reading about oneirology this morning ... including some truly amazing things about the dreams that animals have (and yes, there is scientific evidence proving that animals do indeed dream in a manner quite similar to humans). Rather than do that, however, I'll just encourage you to hit the Google for yourself if you're interested, and I'll end this post by sharing another one of my recurring dreams ... one that has nothing to do with fevers or wolves.

This dream ... this magical dream ... often varies in where it takes place or in its particular content, but it always involves the same girl ... the same absolutely beautiful girl. I can't say that it's always true that I have this dream at certain times like I do the wolf dream, but I do believe that I'm beginning to detect a definite pattern as to when I am most likely to dream about the gal with the shimmering blonde hair and the piercing blue eyes. I dream about her when I'm overwhelmed by sadness and loneliness ... I dream about her when I'm searching for meaning in my life ... I dream about her when I'm struggling against wanting to give up. I truly believe that the nights the beautiful, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl smiles at me, laughs with me, says my name, reaches her arms toward me ... I believe those are the nights ... those are the dream-filled nights when God knows I need her most of all. Those are the nights He sends me the girl of my dreams to remind me of how very much He loves me ... to remind me that He has a reason for wanting me to live ... to remind me that the girl of my dreams is a big, huge, gigantic part of His plan for my life ... to remind me that nothing on earth is greater or more important than the unconditional love of those who matter most of all.

I woke up smiling this morning, which is unusual for me on a Sunday ... Sundays are without question the hardest day of the week for me for many reasons. I woke up smiling because I was dreaming about her ... she was laughing ... she was running ... she was dancing ... she was hugging me ... she was blowing me kisses ... she was saying, "Hi, Ghee! Hi, Ghee! Hi, Ghee! 'Mon, Ghee ... read a ment guck Boo!" Sometimes I wonder if my precious C.J. ever dreams about me ... my mom used to tell my kids she was always as close as their dreams. I love you, sweet C.J. ... you really are the girl of my dreams ... hope you always know that I'm as close as your dreams, little one ... I'm as close as your dreams.