Dream a Dream of... wha?

Last night I had what I'm sure will become my most memorable dream to date. Up to this point the dream I most remember is one I had many years ago in which I was being pursued by the cops for a murder I didn't commit. Last night's was not so dark, but was probably more absurd seeing as it featured an approaching arranged wedding.

So, for a bit of context I must tell you a little story.

The first girl I had a 'real'* crush on was Lisa G(she is no longer Lisa G. She is now Lisa some other letter, because she went and got married in real life). I would give her the title of my second** biggest crush ever. I met her in 7th grade and the last time I really talked to her was the first day of Freshman year and basically throughout that time she was the girl that I liked.

The dream is I think actually two dreams. I'm not certain, but I think I woke up for just a little bit in the wee hours of the morning. However, it is a semi-contiguous storyline. Dreams are always kind of hazy, so forgive any vagueness or stuff that doesn't quite follow.

The first part of the dream I find out that it has been arranged that I will marry Lisa G. It's weird, because I've not seen Lisa G. in more than four years. It also wasn't like an arranged marriage you'd think of in old India. It was more like everything about my wedding had been planned and I just hadn't been informed until a few days before that anything was happening. I was just the last piece of the puzzle.

So, I'm think it rather odd and everything, but I'm not fighting. I remember getting a suit, which is the last thing I really remember before I think I woke up and looked at the clock and it was some early hour.

Things are about to get really disjointed, which is another reason I think there were two parts

The next bit I remember I wake up(in the dream***) and the clock says that it's 10:00, but it's dark and I'm on the floor of what most closely resembles the office I work at. I don't know exactly how it happens, but I'm up and in my suit and everyone is there. I come to realize that this is the Rehearsal Dinner or rather that we're about to go out to the dinner.

So, I'm really puzzled. I just woke up at what I assume to be 10pm and the last time I remember being awake in the dream is the very early morning, so I had apparently slept for like 20 hours. I'm also getting more annoyed that I'm just kind of being plugged into this wedding. So, I start asking around about how exactly this came to be, but no one is answering.

Then, Lisa comes in and she's wearing her wedding dress. We have to pose for pictures and stuff. Rehearsal dinner's are more of the business casual affair (if that) in real life, but it seemed normal that everyone was dressed as if this was the actual wedding. We pose for pictures and I'm trying to talk to her out of the side of my mouth to see what she knows. She doesn't really say anything.

Towards the end of the pictures, I somehow get gum**** into her hair. She has to leave to fix it and people seemed annoyed with me (rightfully so). In the meantime, I find out who was behind this entire arranged wedding thing. I have no idea who told me; I'm not sure if it's some I know and have just forgotten, but I think it's more likely that it was just a person my mind made up.

So I find out that it is... My Mom and Emma behind this.

I go and question my Mom and she doesn't have anything to say and we're about to leave. So, I'm walking out into a cold night with my Sister. I say something about how I can't go with them and how I have to go with Lisa and how I don't have my car. She just says something like, "it'll work out," and leaves.

Now comes a part that I know fits with the rest of the dream, but I can't quite place it. Outside, there are a lot of domestic dogs and something that is obviously in tiger-suit. It wasn't an oddity in the dream. I knew they had been planted there for some reason, because I remember something about wild animals earlier in the dream. My theory is that it was somehow supposed to make me look heroic, but they were pretty sad excuses for wild animals. I remember that a Greyhound came up and jumped on me, but that was about it.

I'm out in the cold and I'm waiting for Lisa to come out. The first person to come out isn't Lisa though. It's Emma. She's wearing this long purple dress. This part of the dream isn't that hazy, but it's context is lost. I hadn't told Emma or anyone that I was about to get married, because I wasn't exactly how to drop that bomb or even explain how I came by it. Also, I knew she already had some conflict on the day of the wedding, which I think was her own wedding. The reason I think the conflict was her own wedding will be made more obvious in a bit.

Of course at this point in the dream, I know that she had known about it all along. However, my concern wasn't about that. I was concerned about her boyfriend. This is the only dialogue in the dream of which I have any semblance of recollection:

Me: Is your boyfriend real?

Emma: No

Me: How not real is he?

The reason I asked this was not to be vindictive. I was curious as to whether or not he had been real and she had kept her being dumped a secret or something.

Emma: He's not real.

At this point we are sitting in a car. It is a blue Vauxhall***** hatchback.

And that's it. I wake up for real and it's a quarter till 8 and I'm like, "what the fuck?" I want to go back to sleep, but I don't want to forget it so I send a tweet from my phone and try to go back to sleep that I hope would jog my memory later. That doesn't work, so I wake up turn on my computer and find the Australian Open Men's Final was still going on and 2-2 in the fifth set, so I watch that. I tweet some more about the dream and Emma (the real one) asks me nicely to blog about it.

I'm not one who's big on dream interpretation. My elementary understanding of the Brain makes me think that sleep is used to by the mind to make some connections that you may have missed during the day*******. I think dreams help in that process, but I also think they also exist, because the brain is bored while you're asleep. So, I think, if there are meanings in dreams, they are much more literal than any dream dictionary or Freud fan would have you believe.

So, when I look at this dream I don't know what I see exactly. I only really have guesses at particular meanings (because I think there are several in this dream) that I want to share:

1. The Arranged Marriage- I think this is about my own resentment of how involved my parents still are in my life.

2. The fake wild animals- I think they're representations of phony attempts my others to build up my self-esteem.

That's about it. I don't know exactly what to make of it and don't know if I should really even try. You're certainly welcome to play psychologist if you would like.

Thanks for reading

-Michael
*I mean that she is the first girl I actually liked, because I was attracted to her. I didn't just have a crush on her because I'm a boy and am supposed to like girls.
**My biggest crush was a girl I liked during my senior year of high school and deluded myself for more than a year after graduation that it might happen, when she kindly enough made it clear that it wasn't going to happen.
***I wake up and look immediately at the clock in my dreams often. I'm always late and then I wake up for real and see that I'm not really late and it's nice.
****I haven't regularly chewed gum since Freshman year.
*****Vauxhalls aren't even sold in the U.S. Too much Top Gear and Forza.
******Sarah, why don't you have a go at this one?