Having Anxiety Dreams? It’s Time To Keep a Dream Journal

Dear Dreamers,

I’m writing this missive from a cute little coffee shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma called Cirque. I’m here with S., who I’ve known since 2015, when I was 18 years old. You couldn’t pay us to be 18 again, S. and I agreed in the car. But there was wonder in that age, too, I think. I wasn’t quite so haunted, back then, and my clarity of vision wasn’t so good, and I knew the ghosts were there but I didn’t want to talk to them. Or maybe they didn’t want to talk to me, bored with my ignorance, my refusal.

I’ve been thinking about that impossible age lately, as I enter my saturn return, as I close the loop. My birthday is next week, and next year, my twenties will be over. Will I miss them? I’m not so sure. To be alive right now, at this moment, well, it’s not so easy. But when I wake up in the morning with the dregs of a dream still all over me, when I see the texts that have come after my early bedtime, when the cats’ watch me brush my teeth with a creepy intensity, when the sun hits me in the eyes and my wrists hurt and my hair looks thinner than usual, I think, oh, I didn’t think I’d get this far. The future looks better than I ever thought it could.

Sending you good dreams,
Cowboy

P.S. I really do find a lot of joy in this community, and I’d love it if you’d submit a dream for interpretation or a question for a Tarot reading!

Queer Dream Interpretation

What Can We Learn From Anxiety Dreams?

At a party where I know nobody. Theme is “things with wings”, but I am not on theme. I am having drinks. A brute dude tried to take my drink but I defend it and keep drinking. It is a dark bottle of beer now. I then start spitting out shards of glass in the bathroom and they just keep coming. I put them in a small circular Plexiglas dish. There are two dishes. Some shards, I have to take out with my fingers. A woman is soothing me saying it’s ok but also making sure I don’t sue. Another is sitting in the corner, laughing, making fun of me.
– LL

Dear LL,

Thank you for the gift of your dream. Not to put too much emphasis on “nightmare scenario” here, but this does indeed sound like a nightmare. While it is not wholly realistic, it is the dream version of a party we’ve all been at, one that can quickly make anxiety settle over us. Anxiety dreams in general, and related to you, are what I’d like to focus on here.

Private clients I’ve had, as well as folks who I’ve interpreted for out in the wild, have expressed to me a wide variety of dreams, with themes big and small, but by far the most common dreams that I hear about are those that I would call the “Anxiety Dream.” The anxiety dream can be one that recurs, one that involves showing up embarrassingly dressed to high school home room, or one that, seemingly, is so true to life that you wake up worried it might have really happened, but all are manifested by one’s own nervous energy, the brain blinking out a terrified message. This dream of yours is a great example of such a message, and I am especially drawn to the two women in the bathroom. These women, one helpful, but with a motive, and one who experiences delight at your misfortune, are actually mirrors of yourself and the way you handle your concerns. The first, while she seems soothing, actually just wants to corral something about you, and put it back into “working” order. Think about times in your life you have forced down your feelings for the benefit of smoothing down another person’s feelings, or to bring back some kind of peace and unity. Are you still doing that even when you should not?

The second woman, the laughing one, is a representation of making a mockery of yourself, of your “issues.” It is okay to feel wounded, and strange, and small, but instead of casting this off as ridiculous, interrogate it to its root. Is someone else making you feel this way, or is it your own feelings of inferiority rearing their ugly heads? Observe these things, and catalogue them. Next time either voice comes back, don’t allow them to lead your yoke.

For anyone experiencing an occurrence (or recurrence) of the Anxiety Dream, I would suggest the same steps, as well as the keeping of a dream journal (more on that later) even if it’s just a few sentences in your notes app. You, and your subconscious, will be better for it.

See you on the other side,
CC

A Body Horror Dream With a Positive Message

I was trying to get an eyelash out of my eye, but it wasn’t an eyelash. There was an entire eyebrow growing under my eyelid. And then somehow a row of small teeth slowly emerged underneath and there was the outline of a third eye growing between the two. The eye never emerged, the pupil and iris were visible as darker spots behind thin skin pushing out in the shape of an eye. It wasn’t particularly unsettling or upsetting in the dream, and it wasn’t clear if I was growing a new body part or something was growing from me. But when I woke up I felt sick — unsettled and slightly nauseous, both disgusted and fascinated and perhaps a bit afraid.
– BL

Dear BL,

Thank you for the gift of your dream. And what a dream it is! I am no stranger to body horror dreams myself, and I must admit that I often feel the same way you’ve described after them. Fear not, however, for though this dream may make you feel unsettled in several ways, it is actually a positive message.

Let me explain, while body horror dreams can sometimes be classed as Anxiety Dreams, the threads you’ve described here point instead to a kind of birth. Pregnancy dreams, too, can act as something akin to what you’ve described here, a kind of violent letting of the body to produce something. In your case, however, the result is quite… gnarly. Or at least the production is. Creation, it must be said, is often not easy, especially in the world we are living in. Art, and things that do not produce cold hard cash, are not valued as they should be, and so we often relegate them to the sides of our lives. Are you allowed to indulge your creativity? Are you letting yourself do something outside of the work, for just you and no one else? If not, you should, and you should see where it takes you. It may be somewhere you do not expect.

Further, this dream could also be a signal that, aside from creativity, you are not expressing emotions and feelings that others might class as “ugly.” But remember, true range of expression is a type of freedom, and it is possible. This, too, might be something you do just for you, but it is worth it.

See you on the other side,
CC

Five Prompts for Your Dream Journal

I’ve always been an advocate for the dream journal, even way back when I first started interpreting dreams publicly, what feels like a lifetime ago. And, to be clear, I am not good at journaling or keeping a diary in other respects. I think I have an aversion to the words themselves, and yet, in my notes app, in a few sentences or less, I’ve been able to keep a steady log of dreams I’ve had for a few years now, something that is especially helpful to look back on when I’m writing, like my own personal history book.

So, in that spirit, I’d like to present to you five easy prompts to begin (or continue) your dream journal journey. I hope they bring as much clarity as they’ve brought me.

1. In the last dream you had, were you I yourself, or were you someone/something else? If you were not yourself, who were you, and has this someone/something appeared in your dreams before? 
2. In the past two weeks, what emotion have you felt most strongly in your dreams? Happiness? Anger? Sadness? Something else? What was this emotion related to?
3. What is the last dream you remember most vividly? What was it about? Do you know what it means? Why or why not? 
4. Picture your subconscious like a room. What is filled with? What does it look like? 
5. Name three physical objects that appeared in your last dream. Are they something you possess in real life? Are they an object from your past, present, or future?