HI DEF DREAMING

I always dream big in October.  It's not the ambitious and aspiration waking kind, but more the REM technicolor nightmarish sort.  The kind of sleep where you wake more tired than you went to bed.

October is transitions.  It's sleeping weather finally, when you open up the windows and pull out the flannel pj's.  It's the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, my birthday, and Halloween.   

So, it's no surprise that I'm dreaming in high def.

Last night, I found myself smack dab in the middle of pregnancy panic dream.  You know the kind(or maybe you don't)- Omigod, I'm pregnant.  When did this happen?  I don't want to be pregnant and now it's way too late, since I'm 7 1/2 months along, to do anything about it.  I cannot possibly give birth.  I'm too much of a wimp.  I don't even have my ears pierced, for Christ's sake.

There are many variations of this nightmare, which I've had throughout my life.  There is the who is the father? theme for instance.   Or how will I tell my parents?  motif is another.  The I'm-not-prepared  kind is most frequent.  Occasionally, I do indeed give birth in the dream, only to find it's not a baby, but instead a full grown adult or an inanimate object.   But I perpetually digress.

Last night, a new version emerged.  I was pregnant, very pregnant,  I knew the father, that wasn't the problem.  My parents would be thrilled since my brother is a priest and I am the only hope for progeny,  And though I was horrified by how fat I had become and that, inevitably I would have to deal with the exit strategy for the monolith in my belly, it wasn't pain I feared.  My twenties taught me I have an unnatural threshold for discomfort.

It was that I wasn't Jewish.  I'm a pretty quick study, I reasoned in the dream, but there was no way I could do a legit Orthodox conversion in a month and a half.  The father was Jewish with a capitol J and this was going to be a big with a capitol B problem.

I awoke from the dream, my flannel jammies soaked with sweat and twisted around my body.  It made me miss my Yia Yia, the ultimate dream interpreter, who could decode any dream- no matter how strange- with equally esoteric solutions.  

For instance:

Me: Yia Yia, I dreamt all my teeth were loose and falling out.

Yia Yia: O-poh-poh.  You better walk to school then.

Me: Yia Yia, I dreamt I gave birth to a fully formed grey man.

Yia Yia: What good luck!

I think last night's dream isn't really that much of mystery for a number of reasons, but still I could use some ancient Greek village wisdom.