Nebuchadnezzer and a Giraffe

Well, this is different for me. When I blog I usually write it down on paper first, but I'm not this time. This is totally spontaneous. What you, my readers (all 3 of you), are reading right now is completely and totally off the cuff. I'm just wingin' it. Let's see what I come up with.

Do you ever have one of those dreams where you wake up from it and you're just like, "WHAT?" Or the dream just seems so real and you wake up so slowly that it overlaps with waking life, and you find yourself worrying about a problem you had in the dream, like where you're going to find a sweater for your giraffe, while you're in the shower the next morning. Then, while you're brushing your teeth, it slowly dawns on you: giraffes don't wear sweaters.

I think dreams are fascinating. I've always wondered if dreams really do have symbolic meaning, or if they're just a collection of random images and ideas that you've collected throughout the day and that somehow assemble into a coherent, or not-so-coherent, story. Or stories. With subplots and commercial breaks. Even musical numbers.

I think dreams could be symbolic, or at least representative, of our own personalities and lives, because they come from our own minds. If you're really worried about, say, an important exam you have tomorrow, you might dream that you're worried about something else, like where you're going to find a sweater for your giraffe, that is symbolic of the real problem you're facing. I also think it's possible that dreams are just completely random.

I don't dream as much as I used to when I was little. Or, at least, I don't remember as many dreams. I had some pretty crazy dreams between the ages of about six and eleven. Probably the weirdest one, and the scariest one for, like, three years after I had it, was about a gorilla. Two gorillas, actually. They were chasing me around my old church. Well, one was chasing me. He was the bad gorilla. But the other one was the good gorilla, and he was trying to help me get away from the bad gorilla. I don't remember exact details, only that I woke up crying and had to go to the bathroom really bad afterward.

If dreams are symbolic, I wonder what the gorillas symbolize? Probably, like, fear or something...

I also always thought it would be really cool to have prophetic dreams, like King Nebuchadnezzer. I have no idea if I spelled that right. Like the one he had about the statue that got smashed by the rock. Or like John in Revelation. I guess that was more of a vision than a dream. Also, Nebuchadnezzer had the coolest name in the Bible, probably. When I was little I had this book about him called The Braggy King of Babylon. In kindergarten I was the only kid in my class who knew about the Babylonian Empire, and the only kid who could pronounce the name Nebuchadnezzer, even though I couldn't spell it.

Whether or dreams are symbolic or just random, I think they serve a purpose. Dreams give you a sort of alternate reality, a fantasy world of your own mind's making to entertain you while you sleep and give you something to talk about in your Psychology class. Or at a party or whatever. And your sleeping dreams can often inspire your waking dreams, your life dreams. At least they have for me. I want to someday raise gorillas and start a line of sweaters for giraffes.