November 2nd

This past week, I was talking to my therapist about how I'm writing a blog about dreams. She proceeded to tell me about two ladies she knows who live in different parts of the U.S. who belong to something called a "dream group". She offered to contact them for me, and said that they would be very interested to help me interpret some of my dreams over the phone. Now, this struck me as sort of strange because these people know literally nothing about me, so it might be a little tough to interpret my own personal dreams. But they think they can. I guess I'll give it a shot though because: why not? So stay tuned for that I suppose.

On a different note, I'm going to talk a little bit about a reoccurring dream I used to have when I was little. I have tried to interpret it over the years, and I think I may have finally found a way to make sense of it all.
It always started off when I would fall asleep in my mom's bed with her. My thoughts would all go away for a little while when I shut my eyes, but it wasn't long before they returned. My body was paralyzed and my mind was the opposite. Looking down my basement stairs, I saw a green-faced devilish creature smiling at me. Before I could see its entire body, I started running; immediately associating this creature with morbidity. The next thing I remember is being in a forest, still running. The green-faced Thing chasing me. I tried to scream, but there was something wrong. No sound would come out of my helpless body.
At this point, something strange would occur. Trying to scream in my dream made me try to scream in reality, and I would wake up with my mom shaking me. "Stella, what are you doing?" She was confused, as anyone would be if they heard their child making a muffled, not-quite-screaming type of noise when they're sound asleep.
This dream would occur several times a month for several years. I remember it so vividly.

My Interpretation:
At the time in my life when this would happen, my home life was shifting. My grandmother's death, my parents' divorce, and let's not forget the struggle of growing up as a young girl in a world full of bullies. The green-faced Thing representing my hardships and burdens chasing after me. My not being able to scream, represented my bottled-up feelings not able to be expressed. I remember as a child never being able to show my emotions properly. It's just strange to me that that showed in a  vivid nightmare.
It took me several years for the meaning of that dream to register, and it's the only one I've had that really sticks out to me. It's common for children to have nightmares and dreams in general that represent their lives, but it was just such a perfect depiction of my feelings.