Dream a little dream...

My subconscious is mean.

Really. And it’s starting to get very, very upsetting. I keep having these really terrible, violent dreams. They’re not horror/slasher flick material or anything, but it’s always someone I care about, or am at least close to, and always me trying to hurt them, verbally at first, and that never seems to work, and eventually I start to hit them, desperate to make them see how angry I am. And in the dreams, it never seems to work. The things I’m doing are horrible and violent, and the other person is always so placid about taking the abuse, and that only makes dreaming me angrier and awake me more disturbed.

This is so hard to talk about in the abstract. The worst of them were about a friend who betrayed me last spring whose name is far too unique for me to risk posting iy here. Let’s call her Sue. I haven’t had a Sue dream since sometime this fall, and I’m quite glad. They were gut-wrenching, every last one, and I’d wake up shaking and disoriented with my heart pounding, simultaneously horrified and angrier than I can remember having been at any other time in my life. For months she’d show up in the middle of whatever else I was dreaming about, and she would immediately take precedence over anything else. I’d start by calmly confronting her about the things she had done, and she’s defend herself half-heartedly, utterly convinced she was in the right and scoffing at me for believing otherwise. This would make me angry, and I’d start to yell, or lecture, or sometimes even cry. Often Ben was there in the background, and I’d appeal to him for help, but everyone, Sue included, would just stare at me and tell me how irrational and unfair I was being. And inevitably the dreams all progressed to violence. I’d slap her, punch her, nock her to the ground and kick her or pull her by her hair and beat her head against the wall. And nothing ever happened. I’d wake up in the middle of it, my body still hopped up on adrenaline and all the various chemical components of anger, but immediately I felt sick, disgusted that I could be so violent, and the anger and shame would get wound up in eachother and follow me around throughout the day. This went on for months.

Since the Sue dreams have tapered off, I’ve started to have similar dreams where other people evoke my anger, take my wrath. I should say now that it’s really very rare for me to dream about anyone I really know, an that when I do people bleed into eachother, having the face of one person, the mannerisms of another, and yet I recognize them as someone else entirely. This makes the violence even more disturbing. Last night, for example:

The details are already blurring away, but I remember Ben, and a strange house I wasn’t comfortable in, and looking to him for some kind of assurance, and also being irritated with him for something I don’t remember anymore. And then I was angry at him, and I don’t remember why, but I feel like it wasn’t anything to do with the dream, just real-life Ben stuff that shows up every time I see his face. And I do, specifically, remember seeing his face; he arched an eyebrow at me, in that condescending thing he does that he thinks is somehow winsome. Anyhow, at some point I snapped, started yelling, and when he didn’t get the point I reached up as high as I could, grabbed the collar of his shirt, and pulled his head down so I could slap his face repeatedly. As usual, the hits never seemed to fall hard enough to get a response, and he continued to look calm even as I slapped him.

It wasn’t until after I was awake that it occurred to me that I reached up as far as I could, and could only grab his collar. Ben is only 5’10. I can reach his face if I stretch a bit. And when I started thinking about it, I realized it wasn’t Ben’s face I was hitting at all, hadn’t been him that was with me for a while. This is where it gets most upsetting for me, but some exposition is needed to explain it.

So, I work with a bunch of attractive, intelligent, charming guys. I’ve mentioned this, and I make no secret of how much I enjoy it. The students have all gradually become more comfortable and familiar with me, and now many of them drop in just to say hi, talk openly and comfortably, and some even flirt just a bit, that easy, meaningless flirting that happens in situations that you know nothing will come of it. There’s one of them, though, who does none of these things. Let’s call him Joe. I was intensely attracted to him when I first saw him, and unfortunately the attraction has continued to grow. I’m not comfortable with it. I don’t know this guy, not as a person, and this overwhelming attraction is based on nothing more meaningful than the fact that he’s startlingly handsome. And Joe, of course, is the one student who hasn’t warmed up to me in the least and is still distant and rather aloof. Nothing about this situation pleases me.

Add to this the fact that Joe is at least 6'3, and you’ve probably guessed who Ben turned into in this dream before I got so very mad at him. This is an unflattering commentary on my unconscious desires to say the least. I find myself drawn to someone despite my better judgment, only to realize months later that this is the one person out of the dozens I’ve met who remains distant and, in fact, would most likely not notice me if my head were on fire. Apparently I’m a glutton for punishment, even unconsciously. Stupid emotions. Stupid guys, with their height and broad shoulders and emotional inaccessibility. Stupid dreams, making me think about it even when I’m asleep.