Sometimes I wish dreaming had an off button...

  In most ways, I consider myself to be a pretty "normal" person. :)  BUT...  I can not describe how NOT NORMAL my dreams have always been.  Since I was very small, I can remember having twisted night mares and repetitive dreams and very often I have those dreams that you wake up feeling like "that has to mean something"...

The strangest thing about my dreams is that a lot of the time, they seem more real than my reality.  I wake up feeling, in a very real way, every emotion associated with the things going on in the dream.  Many days, I have a hard time shaking the "events" of the previous night's sleep.  It's awful!  I have to tell myself over and over that it wasn't real.

I definitely have a very big imagination, but it's not the creative kind.  Just the type where a small thought can turn into something really big, really quick if I don't stay on top of every idea that pops in my head.  Does that make me sound NUTS?  Sometimes I think so...  I've had conversations about my dreams before with people who end up looking at me like I'm crazy.  They don't have dreams like mine or they can't remember them.  I REMEMBER EVERY DETAIL!

Let me give you an example.  When I was a kid, every couple of months or so, I would have the same dream.  Each time I would have it, I would immediately recognize where I was and remember all about what had happened the last time I dreamed it.  Each time, I'd pick up where I left off and more details would be added.  I had this same dream very consistently for over 20 YEARS!  Finally, one night, the dream changed.  I woke up knowing it was over and I haven't had it again for the last 8 or so years.  Isn't that weird?!!!

Someone once told me that I must dream this way as part of a special form of communication from God and if that's true then I can expect Satan to try to distort that special thing by throwing in a lot of fear via the same medium...  Makes sense I guess... : P  Because of this, I have to be very cautious about the things I watch on TV or stories that I listen to.  Crime shows or stories about injuries or other people's fears can turn into terrible things when I fall asleep.  No matter how harmless they seem during the day, they become big monsters at night.

Don't get me wrong, I dream really good dreams too.  I have been sure, on many occasions that God was behind them and that He was trying to make some point very clear by laying it out to me in a dream.  As a matter of fact, I ended up seeing my 20-year-repetitive-soap-opera dream as a God statement.  I love the good dream nights, even if they are more rare.

I found a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that says, "Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams."  I really hope he's wrong. ;)  The me in my dreams is sometimes WEIRD!  Sometimes I wish I could just push a button that turns off the power to the dream part of my brain...  but I guess that would mean missing the really cool ones too...