Kathleen Valenti

Open to Interpretation

It probably comes as no surprise that I have nutty dreams.

After all, I have a long and storied history of sleepwalking (and I mean “storied” literally since my sleepwalking inspired the plot of my second book), and vivid dreams and parasomnias like sleepwalking often go hand in hand. 

Or foot after foot, if I’m sleepwalking.

Dreams fascinate me. In addition to being an English literature major, I was a psychology major, and I’ll readily admit that I was largely drawn to the latter by the promise of dream interpretation. (And, okay, the opportunity to psychoanalyze coworkers.)

Research suggests that the seven most common dreams are falling, flying, being chased, arriving late, having someone you love die, school, and romantic encounters. 

Then there are classics like teeth falling out, accidental public nudity (great band name, by the way), infidelity, paralysis, and the inability to call for help. 

Yeah, dreams are a regular laugh riot. 

Most dream meanings are pretty easy to suss out. 

Spontaneous nudity and tooth loss: fear of exposure or embarrassment.

Back in school for a pop quiz: concern about preparedness.

Falling off a cliff: feeling overwhelmed or out of control (or you write mysteries and can’t stop thinking of vehicles for murder). 

Then there are my dreams, which range from the odd to the mundane. 

I once dreamed that I opened my shower curtain to reveal The Supremes (fully clothed) who began to sing “Stop In the Name of Love.” 

Then there was the time that John Travolta and I had a deep conversation about Scientology.

Lest you think my dreams are as celebrity-packed as an issue of People magazine, I also have boring dreams. 

Example: I once dreamed that I was tired. 

Then there’s the terror of tarantulas crawling on the walls of my dreamscape, as well as typical recurring dreams:
I’m late to work. I’m being chased by a monster. I didn’t really graduate high school and have to go back. (Pretty sure this is the plot of a Drew Barrymore movie.)

I think what’s most unusual about my dreams is that they all take place in the same location: the house I grew up in. Whether I’m being serenaded by Supremes or picking my teeth off the floor, the events occur in my old living room, the back “sewing room,” or my mom’s favorite peach-hued bathroom. 

At least I can show Travolta around. 

I’m not sure what my dreams mean other than a) I have an overactive imagination b) I drink too much caffeine or c) Murder shows at bedtime aren’t that restful after all. 

Or maybe it’s the sausage biscuit I ate at 10 p.m.

What about you, my dear friends? Do you have any recurring dreams to share? Or funny ones that left you scratching your head?

37 thoughts on “Open to Interpretation”

  1. Ooooh, KATHY, I had no idea you had such vivid dreams.
    I have always been fascinated by dreams, and took several psychology electives at university.

    The recurring bad dream that I have the most is rushing to the airport and missing my flight. Not surprising since I used to travel A LOT both for work and pleasure.

    And LUCID DREAMING. I have psyched myself before going to bed to have a specific dream. It happens & I know that I am dreaming while I am sleeping. Weird, right?

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  2. Hestia here.
    Thank goodness your dreams are fun. I wouldn’t mind dreams about John. Mine usually involve Bruce Willis or Nicholas Cage. Sadly, when I dream about celebs, they are representing someone I know, and just in there as eye candy. I usually know if who they are.
    I definitely have weird dreams. Mine involve running away by flying (which never works), or something being pressed on my chest to where I can’t move. I’ve lived with the hubbs for over a decade, and he just got woken from one of my screaming dreams last month. Scared the crap out of him!
    But my most memorable dreams were right before each of my kids were born. I had dreams that were a premonition of a medical issue they would have.
    With Matt I dreamed about nuclear bombs exploding, and he’s very volatile with his bipolar. Christopher I dreamed about rats eating my heart, and he has a hole in his, leading to an irregular heart beat/murmurs. And my baby girl Jami I dreamed about butterflies buzzing and fluttering in my ears, and she hears voices all the time.
    Yes, I’m weird. No wonder I love mysteries!

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  4. Most all the time I don’t remember my dreams. But Hubby has some beauts.
    About 25 years ago, he told me that he had a dream that was a whopper. He dreamed that the earth was tilting off it’s axis and if it wasn’t corrected, the earth would go spinning off into space. So he called Stephen Spielberg and they worked out a plan. They lined up all the wheeled vehicles in the world into one long line. At the precise moment all the vehicles started their engines and spun their tires. This spun the earth back to the position it should be in, and the earth was saved. That was the end of the dream, but just a couple of months ago he was reading a science article and it mentioned the the earth is starting to tilt slightly on its axis. Hmmmm, he had better call Spielberg!!!!
    Carol

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  5. I tend to forget my dreams pretty quickly, but my wife will happily tell you about the times she has to wake me up because I’m either, punching, shouting, or kind of running in my sleep. The one thing I do remember about those episodes is that they occur when I’m stressed out. Go figure.

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  6. I remember my dreams, and they used to be filled with neat things like flying and being a secret agent. Now, sadly, they’re more about to-do lists and things that I want to actually accomplish in real life. (Then I wake up and find out that they’re not done yet.)

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  7. Do you write them down? How can you possibly remember so many dreams? I don’t dream often, but they are vivid when I do. I had one recurring dream that took place in a specific location–it was very real, but I don’t know if it was anywhere I’d ever been. Maybe my preschool, which was in a house. Much more vivid, and easy to remember, are the hallucinations I got when I was on a drug that I quickly got off. Those were kind of scary. I have one child who sleepwalked. I don’t think he still does.

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    1. I always say, “Boy, I should keep pen and paper by my bed to write down my dreams.” But I never actually do it!

      Hallucinations sound very scary. That veil between real and imagined can be pretty thin sometimes.

      I think most people outgrow sleepwalking. I wish I had!

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    2. I tend not to remember any of mine, either, Kaye. But sometimes they’re so weird I tell my husband about them and we try and figure out what the genesis for it might be. We never figure it out!

      I did have a recurring dream as a kid and I can conjure it even today. there was probably more to it, but it always ended with me flying down the stairs of our house to the basement where I’d land on top of the tall freezer we had down there. Maybe that was my safe space? Although I never felt unsafe as a kid … except when we camped at this place where cows grazed and they’d come right through camp, once letting loose with a stream of urine that could have drowned me if we didn’t know to dig a rain trench around the tent!

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      1. As a young teen I used to have flying dreams. All was beautiful and I soared higher and higher until I started to get scared. The rest was terrifying because I could only go higher and could never come down. Later, in my early 20s, I suddenly developed a fear of heights, which I had never had before, except in those dreams.

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  8. Lots of my dreams take place in my childhood home too, and the taking a test in school that I haven’t prepared for happens frequently. One of my favorites though, is a dream where if I move my feet back and forth really fast, I can walk a foot or so above the ground. IT’s fun!

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  9. I’ve had many of the common dreams. I’ve had one recur where I am hiding from the Nazis. Not completely sure what that one is about, but the first time I had it was when I was reading The Hiding Place about a Dutch family that hid Jews from the Nazis. I’m sure that’s what inspired it, but I’m not sure why it pops up again every few years.

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  10. My recurring dream is taking a test I haven’t studied for–or in a class I’ve never even been to before. Gee, wonder where that comes from? (Says this perennial class-taker.)

    I once spend a couple months trying to lucid dream by writing my dreams down whenever I woke up in the middle of the night (which folks say helps to do it), but it only worked once. I realized was dreaming and told myself, “Fly!” So I did. Which was really fun. But I hated waking up enough to write down my dreams, so I quit doing it, and never lucid dreamed again.

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    1. That test-taking one is such a classic! It feels so real, doesn’t it?

      You’re all inspiring me to try lucid dreaming! (Although I never seem to be able to write down my dreams so……….)

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  11. Kathy, I am a fellow English/Psych major! I started to regret the psych side when I took Psychoanalytic & Myth Criticism as an elective. I still have no idea what it was about, but I did get to see a lot of weird movies. My dreams, I think, are of the boring to-do variety (I literally dreamed in Track Changes a couple of nights ago), but I do remember 2 very important ones. They even felt different, because they were so…bright? In both, my late mom appeared, all dressed up in travel clothes, and told me it was time to go, because (my daughter) had just gone into labor. And yes…she had, almost to the minute.

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  12. When I was a child, I dreamt like something was bearing down on me and trying to crush me.
    It is hard to explain but I had that dream a lot. I would run in the living room of our house and finally wake up scared to death. Now I dream weird dreams. Some I remember and some I don’t. They usually have to do with my husband breaking up with me when we were younger, and I could not get in touch with him to make it right. I also dream that I am still teaching, and many issues are occurring. I should write down the ones I remember when I wake up because later in the day, I forget what it was all about.

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