As winter break approaches, the younger Free-Ride offspring had an unscheduled nightmare.
OK, none of the nightmares is scheduled. Still, this is a week where we could all use more sleep, not less.
Younger offspring: I thought I didn't have nightmares anymore, but then I had one last night.
Dr. Free-Ride: When you climbed into our bed, I told you that you wouldn't have another nightmare, or at least if you did, it would be OK because you'd wake up and find us there.
Younger offspring: You were right. But I still didn't want to have a nightmare.
Dr. Free-Ride: I know. I don't like to have nightmares, either.
Younger offspring: You have nightmares?
Dr. Free-Ride: Sometimes.
Younger offspring: I didn't know grown-ups had dreams. I thought when you closed your eyes, you just saw black.
Dr. Free-Ride: Of course grown-ups dream! Our brains still do ... well, whatever it is that brains do that makes dreams while we're sleeping.
Younger offspring: Sometimes when I go to sleep, I just close my eyes and see black but don't have dreams.
Dr. Free-Ride: Maybe you're dreaming but when you wake up you just don't remember any of the dreams, or even that you were dreaming.
Younger offspring: I don't thinks so. But if I'm not remembering, then I don't know how I could tell.
Dr. Free-Ride: A good point.
Younger offspring: It's like I'm watching a movie, but I'm in the movie.
Dr. Free-Ride: So, can you ever tell while you're dreaming that it's a dream you're having?
Younger offspring: No. It seems like it's really happening. Even when the Grinch is there.
Dr. Free-Ride: So, are these dream movies in black and white or color.
Younger offspring: Color. Do some people dream in black and white?
Dr. Free-Ride: That's what I've heard, but maybe it's people who watched more black and white movies than we have.
* * * * *
The difference between a sweet dream and a nightmare might be a matter of where you are in the food chain. The bear here looks pretty happy ... at least, until the indigestion kicks in.
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I love the "wait grownups dream?" line.
Also, I had nightmares as a child. About the Grinch.
> see black
Ah, I remember that. Like when I used to be able to sit in a silent place and hear silence. I could go caving, and have both.
Then I got older. Is there even a word for the visual equivalent of tinnitus? Most people I know will describe it as 'visual snow' (or "TV after the station signs off for the night" which is another index of how it's associated with aging).
Nightmares do seem to get very rare later in life too, from my experience and those I've asked older than I.
There actually is evidence that people who grew up watching black and white movies and TV tend to dream in black and white.
Isis only sees pink and sparkles when she closes her eyes. And she usually dreams about shoes.
"So, can you ever tell while you're dreaming that it's a dream you're having?"
See, I can tell, and I don't have control over what happens, but I can wake myself up, so I just don't have nightmares. It's very convenient, lucid dreaming. Only when I had been given painkillers after surgery, I couldn't wake myself up properly, and I kept slipping from one dream to the next. That is the only nightmare I remember having, but the awareness of not being able to wake up was probably worse than the dream itself.
A child's life is full of fret and worry, of course they have nightmares. It's the brain sorting things out after a long day of making a valiant effort at being a good kid. Grown ups don't have as any nightmares because they don't have to worry about things kids have to worry about.
YTD, the woman you become will not be the girl you are now. Should any misdeed you commit now come to light 20 years later, it won't destroy your life, at worst it'll give all your friends a good laugh. When you're small all your problems seem big. As you get bigger you learn how small your problems tend to be. And as for your PERMANENT RECORD (cue ominous, discordant chord)? As Linus van Pelf once told his sister Lucy, "Twenty years from now who's going to know?"