What do you dream about?

Lately I’ve been keeping a dream journal. Every morning when I first wake up, I open up my laptop and quickly write down everything that I can remember. My goal is to eventually be able to lucid dream and remember it. Last night I had a dream with a recurring theme.: I was part of some resistance movement in France in WWII. My confederates and I were operating out of a farm house. I don’t remember much, but I remember seeing that the Nazis were coming and running as fast as I could down the dirt road to the farm house. I needed to warn my friends so we could hide our instruments and change clothes. We didn’t have much time before the Nazis pulled up in their cars and motorcycles. I think they took some of my friends off to death camps.

I don’t have this exact dream, but the theme is always the same. A few weeks ago I had a dream that I was trying to build secret bunkers under buildings for my resistance group before the Nazi’s came, but I was only able to build one before they showed up, and then the Nazis used the building above my secret bunker as their headquarters. I was scared and mad at myself for not getting more done before they arrived. There was another dream where I was trying to steal Eva Brown’s good dishes from Versailles, but got caught. The earliest dream I can remember with Nazis had me in the woods, at night, trying to escape from a small cabin, and they hunted me down and shot me. I’m not sure why it’s Nazis. I guess subconsciously they scare the shit out of me. Consciously I know they’re human beings, they can bleed, die, and have family back home waiting for them; but this doesn’t occur to my subconscious.  To my subconscious they are demons, pure black evil sadistic beings. If they see you, you’re already dead.

Sometimes I’m not running from Nazi’s, sometimes I’m running from werewolves or vampires. (Usually werewolves) There are two other themes that keep appearing: deep dark water pulling me under, and having a gun that won’t shoot. I’ve had several dreams where something bad was going to happen and I desperately wanted a gun. When I found one, it would always be loaded with batteries or crayons and would never fire. I’d be helpless as I watched the bad things happen. If I ever did get a gun with bullets, they never seemed to hurt the bad guys. Sometimes when I’m running it also feels like I’m trying to run while under water. No matter how hard I try I can only walk slowly.

What really disappoints me about my dreams are the landscapes. I never dream about being someplace really interesting, like an exotic forest, or in space, or underwater. My dreams are always poor reconstructions of the environment around me. Sometimes I’ll be in my house, or on my old college campus, but the size, positioning, and distance between buildings is all wrong. Sometimes buildings will combine. All the dreams are in color, but none of them are very vivd. It always feels like I’m watching a movie in my dream; seldom does it feel like I’m experiencing anything first hand. So yeah, that’s mainly what I dream about. What about you?