Sara and Melissa Talk About...Dreams

We've been running a column series to get more personal with our readers. We are currently in our fifth year!

This month, we are talking about dreams. We tend to email each other when we have strange dreams and Sara even sent Melissa a dream analysis book one year as a birthday gift because of this. 

We're always open to topic suggestions, so please don't hesitate to share those in the comments. We'd also love to know if you can relate to anything we've said or hear your own thoughts on the topic. So don't be shy. :) We look forward to getting to know you as much as we're letting you get to know us. You can find our previous columns here, in case you missed them. 

Melissa Amster:

I keep getting the song "Dreams" by The Cranberries in my head whenever I think about this topic. It's a good song though! In any case, I have had so many crazy dreams over the years. Some end up being pretty vivid and some disappear as soon as I wake up. For this post, I'm just going to share what I dream about most frequently. Keep in mind, I have zero control over my dreams.

1. Ex-boyfriends. I clearly do not manifest this into my dreams as they are not in my life anymore, but somehow they show up in my dreams a lot. Especially the one I don't even want to dream about at all. And that just gets so annoying each time he shows up. 

2. The friend from college who ghosted me over 20 years ago. I'm sure this could be attributed to unfinished business and not getting any closure, but she will just show up in random places during my dreams and we'll end up having conversations. Most of the time, we somehow reconnect as friends.

3. Work. It consumes enough of my life that it's natural I would dream about doing work. I can even see the work I'm doing on my computer in my dream! I used to dream about my previous job sometimes, as well as being back in the office where I used to work. 

4. Entertainment venues. Weirdly, a lot of the time I end up at sports arenas or ball parks. I don't like sports, so this is odd. I occasionally have a theater dream but those are pretty crazy too. I remember having one before I saw Company, where I was at the theater but was completely blocked from seeing the stage at all. I've probably been to a few movie theaters in my dreams too. 

5. My nephew. I have had a bunch of dreams where I am spending time with my (almost) two year-old nephew. Sometimes he's talking and other times he's just being sweet and affectionate. 

6. Having babies. I am way past done having babies and am happy being the mom of teenagers, but I still have dreams where I'll be giving birth or ending up with a baby of my own somehow.

7. Friends I am close with, even if I haven't met them in person or last saw them in person a long time ago. I think Sara was even in one of the dreams a while back! 

I think I've given up trying to analyze the dreams by this point in time, even though I still have the book on my dresser. 

Sara Steven:

I can’t remember any of my more recent dreams. I’m not sure what that means. I used to have some pretty vivid dreams and what I’d felt at times were important premonitions that sprouted from the dreams, but that happened a lot more often in my youth and not as often in recent years. 

There was the time I dreamt of an ex-boyfriend, who I later ran into in person that same day! I can’t remember the details of the dream–only that I didn’t feel at all surprised when I saw him at the local roller rink. It had been two years since we’d broken up. I still feel like the universe was trying to give me a head’s up about that encounter.

Then there was a dream I’d had regarding a guy I’d been dating, who appeared as some sort of mystical vampire literally sucking the life force from me. Fangs in neck. Copious amounts of blood. Apparently his true-to-life leeching showcased itself within my dream, indicating it was time to let the bloodsucker go.

When I was pregnant with my second child, I had a dream that I was hanging out at an indoor pool where newborn babies swaddled in either pink or blue blankets floated around, waiting their turn to be placed within the arms of expectant mothers. Attending women moved around within the shallow water, handing over baby after baby, and when it was my turn, I’d been given a newborn wrapped in blue. I protested, sure there had been some sort of mistake. “But I’m having a girl,” I said. I was sure of it. The attendant shrugged and carried on with her duties, while I gazed deeply into the hazel green eyes of a sweet little bald baby who later turned out to be my little guy in real life–he lost most of his hair after he was born, and he still has the prettiest hazel eyes.

Then there was the dream I’d had with a good friend of mine who fought valiantly after receiving a stage four cancer diagnosis. At the time, I was in another state, visiting family for the holidays when I dreamed of my friend, sitting in a pick-up truck, slurping on a chocolate milkshake. She was never one for milkshakes, but this time, she shrugged and said, “It doesn’t matter now,” giving me one of her famous loud laughs that I’ve missed every single day since I last heard it. I told her I wasn’t ready for her to go, but she told me if I ever needed her, I knew where to find her, and she looked up into a bright blue sky, smiling. I woke up to my cell phone ringing, with a call from her sister that our beloved friend, sister, and mother had passed on. 

I do think dreams can tell you what your subconscious is trying to get you to factor in, or better understand, especially if you have something going on in your life that ends up manifesting into dreamland. But I also think dreams can be a calling card or a way to revisit our loved ones, especially the ones that we miss and haven’t spoken to or seen in a very long time. 

What do you dream about?

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