what dreams may come

One cool thing about the week before my period (sorry if that's TMI, I have a uterus, get over it) is that I have vivid, complicated, all-night-long dreams*. One totally not-cool thing is that at least every other month, one or more of those dreams is about my mother.

A month or two ago, I had a dream in which I managed to get my mom to sit down and listen to me while I explained to her how I felt about my childhood and especially how I feel about the way she treats me as an adult. She was actually open-minded and genuinely interested in how I felt. She wanted to change. I expressed my dubiousness that she really would change, and I felt like an asshole for not letting her back into my life, because she really did seem to *get it*. I woke up still feeling like a jerk, and hung onto a keen feeling of loss throughout the day. That dream was more upsetting to me than all the dreams in which she's abusive and/or we fight. Those dreams just annoy me. This one hurt. I guess some small part of me that I don't usually acknowledge is still wishing for my mommy to get better and tell me she loves me. How sad.

Last night I had another dream. This time she was not the nice, caring mommy. She was a harpy. She stood in my bedroom doorway, rifling through a tiny cloth-bound diary (she read two of my diaries, when I was 14 and 17). She read a description of a family outing to me in a mocking tone, then accused me shrewishly of lying and making everything up. I tried to explain to her that, in fact, the entry was a pretty basic account of the events that had happened on one day, without editorial comment from me. It was, in short, a child's diary entry - all reporting, no interpretation. I tried to express that that type of entry is just the facts, and that nothing about it was made up. In the dream it didn't occur to me to tell her that, duh, this diary was only for my eyes, so to whom exactly would I be lying? Why did it matter to her so much?

It occurs to me now that this desire to have people know the truth about yourself - or at least the truth as you see it - is really important to her, and that it's also very important to me. I had never lined those two things up before, because I consider her truth to be mostly untrue and my truth to be entirely (or at least overwhelmingly, mostly) true. But at the core, both of us feel a desperate need to be known and not to have people believe anything about us that we think is untrue. What does that mean?



*nifty fact: women do tend to dream more during the nights before menstruation starts, and those dreams tend to have an increased number of intense/conflicted interactions with female characters

what dreams may come

Last night brought another nightmare about my mother. I haven't dreamed about her in a long time, and this one was worse than most.

In some of my dreams, she's just somewhere around. Others are more directly about her. Sometimes she's trying to stalk me in a way that is annoying and maybe comical, but not scary. Sometimes I tell her off, strong and direct. When I wake up, I figure she's been on my mind, roll my eyes, and move on.

Last night, I dreamed that I was living with her again, and that I was trying to explain to her what I needed her to do in order for us to re-establish contact. I told her that I needed her to take responsibility for her own actions, to express this to me, and to treat me with respect.

She laughed at me. It was a mean laugh, a mocking laugh. I felt powerless, debased, and afraid. She told me that I was the one who should be taking responsibility, not her. I felt the way I did when I was 21 and she picked fights with me and told me that I had said and done things that I couldn't remember having said or done, and at the time, I entertained the idea that maybe I really was crazy, and that I had done these things, and had some psychological issue that made me block them out. In the dream I was back in that gaslighted place, half convinced that I was experiencing some kind of psychosis. At the same time, I knew she was the madwoman, not me. I started trying to plan an escape. How much of my stuff did I need to take with me? Could I afford an apartment? Could I do it that night?

There was a lot of fear in the dream. Fear of rejection, fear of getting caught, fear that I was the problem, fear of her mockery, fear of what she might do to me. I think I was worried about being consumed, becoming nothing.

The dream has bothered me all day, lurking around the edges of my normal routines. I'm fairly certain that it was induced by the arrival of a Mother's Day card from her on Wednesday. My eldest son found it in the mail, recognized an envelope addressed to me, missing a return address, as suspicious and called my attention to it. I recognized her writing and hated that my son knows which mail comes from her, and that it's unwelcome mail. My husband opened it - I had guessed that it was a Mother's Day card and told him that if it contained crazy-lady rantings, I would add it to my file, but if it was just signed minus the overt crazy, recycle it. Of course, I got it out of him what it said (simply signed "We love you and miss you, Mom & Dad"). I know I should just toss everything, unopened, but I have a morbid curiosity and a need to know all the facts. Knowing is better than not knowing. Still, I hate that I let her succeed in getting mail to me.

What does it mean, that I was talking to her about reconciliation?  Is it just a random thing? Is it my brain reminding me that I needn't feel guilty about opening it or about my son recognizing the card, because ultimately, she's a crazy lady who mocks and disrespects me? Or is there some deep-down desire for reconciliation? I don't think I want that. I don't like her. I don't want to be near her. So why the dream?

the bogeyman...or woman

Once a month I am haunted in my dreams. It always happens in the days just before or just after my period starts - I will have a night full to the brim of long, complicated, winding, detailed dreams.

Inevitably, my mother makes an appearance. If I'm lucky, it's brief. If not, she is a recurring character, coming in and out of the rooms of my dream all night long.

Sometimes I am enmeshed again with her, and we love each other, and this feels strange and concerning to me. Sometimes she is stalking me. Sometimes I tell her off, loudly, pointing my finger and knitting my brow and really laying into her, listing her sins, holding her accountable.

Often I don't remember what happened in the dream when I wake up, but have a troubled feeling for the rest of the day. I know that the feeling has something to do with her, but I don't know what to do with the feeling.

I once read that premenstrual women have longer dreams with more female characters and more conflict. My question is: why? I already know that I have mommy issues, so what am I supposed to do with these dreams?  And is there any way to make them go away?