Last night, I had a dream that I was pregnant. In the dream, I wasn't just pregnant, I was in labor, water breaking, contracting, screaming agony labor. I was at the orthodontist's office (don't ask me why that was the setting) when it happened and then it quickly flashed to me as a new mother with this baby that, even though I have tons of experience with babies, I had NO idea what to do with. I didn't know how to feed it (it because I don't remember if it was a boy or a girl) or how to take care of it. I remember asking my mom who was there, "What do I do?" -- "Feed it," she said. "Feed it what??" I cried. In the dream, I didn't know what to feed my own newborn baby. Then, in what I can only assume was a flash-forward of the same dream, I'm back at the same orthodontist's office, pregnant for the second time, when my water breaks again. I remember saying in the dream to the receptionist, "EVERY TIME I COME HERE, MY WATER BREAKS! I AM NEVER COMING BACK HERE AGAIN!!" -- Quick flash to my parents' house where I waddle to their room and open the door to find them watching TV and say "I think it's time to push." They spring into action, even my dad, who doesn't spring... at all... ever. I remember crying and being afraid to push because of how much it was going to hurt. That is basically the end of the dream.
What is always so striking to me about these dreams when I have them is how vividly I feel every kick, every contraction, every pressure and every pain... I obviously do not have the real life experience to know if what I'm feeling in my dreams is anything akin to what real labor feels like, but somehow between everything I've seen, heard and read about labor and giving birth, my brain takes all that information and takes it out on my body in a seemingly very real way. I wake up in physical pain, like I can still feel every sensation from my dream. I remember shifting my body in my sleep to accomodate needing to push a baby out in my dream. What the hell is that?
What these dreams usually mean is that I feel pressure or stress in my life. The first time I ever had a pregnancy dream, I was a counselor at Camp Chase and in the dream, I had a big pregnant belly and my main concern was that I would lose my job because I couldn't carry the lunch crate with this big belly in the way. Why wasn't I concerned about the fact that I was a) 17 and pregnant, or b) about to pop? The dream has popped up in different forms and scenes over the years and every time, it shakes me to my core. Most often, I feel the real world stress and then comes the dream. This time, the dream came first. I wasn't aware that I felt pressure or stress until I woke up this morning and remembered that dream. My brain is weird.
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