I am reading Oliver Sacks' book, "Hallucinations", for our July book club meeting. That has got me to thinking about my dreams; not that I believe my dreams are hallucinations. But they do have recurring themes or things that appear in most of them.
Most of my dreams consist of me doing some kind of military activity. It is not a war or fighting; usually just some kind of training exercise. It usually takes place in some unidentified location that looks like a military post with many barracks. Several common threads are running through each dream: running late, not packed for wherever I am going (and I am always going somewhere), and being out of uniform.
I see myself rushing to catch my train - my usual more of travel in my dream. If not a train, then it is a military jeep. I haven't packed well. Sometimes I am carrying my suitcase bulging with clothes hanging out, not zipped closed, and I am struggling to hold on to it as I run to get on the train.
When I travel by jeep, it gets dangerous because I am usually not driving and the driver is speeding and reckless.
I often do even get that far. I've got my gear laid out on my bunk and haven't even begun to pack when someone runs in and tells me to hurry or I'll miss my ride. I look at myself in the mirror and see that I am out of uniform. It's always BDU's. Never a dress green uniform. That's interesting in that I seldom wore anything BUT my greens for the last 11 years of my active career, and that continued for 17 years while teaching JROTC at Xavier.
Sometimes though, the dream takes place at Xavier where I taught for 17 years. When that is the case I do seem to recognize people who I worked with at the school, but not their faces or names. I just know they are not strangers.
When I am at Xavier, I am in the building and running through the halls and different floors. I don't go outside.
I usually wake up before I get to where I am going.
