Midnight Madness

I'm not much for dream interpretation, but something is up with me. I do not have an OCD personality in my waking life. I don't sort my clothes by color and length of sleeve, none of my silverware faces the right way in the drawer, I can draw a stick figure and not have to erase it 12 times to make it perfect — so what the heck is with my dreams?


My dreams follow the usual pattern — I'm with friends at dinner, I have a deadline I need to meet and I can't find the file, I'm on American Idol and Simon loves me etc... (okay, not really the last one, but I just watched it and now it's stuck in my head). Lately these dreams have taken on a whole new dimension. In my dreams I have become obsessed with little details. I get caught up in the same conversation at the restaurant in my dream (like a broken record) because my mind keeps changing the color of my dress, or my shoes from flats to heels, or even what I order off the menu. Panic dreams (missing a deadline, having to make a speech, showing up for work naked, etc.)  have me halting in mid-action to straighten a pile of papers or put all the caps back on the pens.


So, all you novice dream interpreters (actually I once met a woman who claimed to be one — she even had a a whole gross of business cards that said so) what do my nighttime meanderings mean? I feel like I should be in some trance or a Vulcan mind meld, so someone can get in my head and just see how very odd this is.


Tonight I am taking an extra dose of Melatonin and hopefully I will have a dreamless sleep — free of worrying whether my purse matches my shoes or whether I wore the right earrings. (If you know me than you know I have never cared — while awake, or asleep — whether my purse matched my shoes.)