dream a little dream

everyone who knows me well knows that i have ridculous dreams.  i'm talking dreams so weird, detailed and long that i often wake up feeling like i've gotten no sleep at all.  sometimes bits of the previous night's dream will come back to me throughout the day, allowing me to piece together the crazy events of my sleep, as has been the case today.

last night i was having a lovely dream about being on vacation in costa rica, staying in a little hut on the beach (i'm sure it somehow had a/c and a full bar) and doing things like body-surfing in the ocean and hiking through the jungle.  ok, stop laughing - you know it was a dream if i was doing those things and not lying on the beach, half drunk with a cocktail and trashy novel in hand. 

in the midst of my vacation paradise dream, my dream-self decided it was time to go and transported us into a very large lobby, with three huge buildings surrounding us and sharing the lobby space.  i had to go up an escalator to get on an elevator that was supposed to take me to somewhere important.  i got on the elevator and pressed the button, only to find that the doors opened and revealed that i was actually standing on a rotating disc that kept going in circles.  the disc was large and people kept jumping on and off but for some reason i seemed to be glued to the floor.  i couldn't get the "elevator" to close and couldn't find the door panel with the buttons on it anymore.  i just kept going in circles and no one would help me.  i looked down and realized i had no shoes on and couldn't see where i had dropped them.  everyone else jumping on and off the platform was wearing shoes but everyone ignored me when i asked if they could help me find mine.  finally my friend G appeared and said one sentence to me, "just jump off for god's sake!" and then promptly disappeared again.  i still couldn't do it and couldn't find my shoes and so i stood there, spinning, until my alarm buzzed and saved my dream-self from simultaneous nervous breakdown and severe motion sickness. 

as i always do after these vivid dreams, i think about them off and on throughout the day, wondering what - if anything - is the meaning of the things i dream about.  i can pretty easily interpret the costa rica segment - i want another beach vacation. that's pretty easy.  but the other part.... not so much, though the shoeless thing wasn't much of a surprise.  finding myself shoeless and in a panic in my dreams has been a pretty common theme over the past couple of years.  i did a little researching and apparently when you find yourself barefoot in your dreams it means one of two things - a) you are carefree and free-spiritied and you're not bothered by being barefoot because you're probably getting ready to run through a field where the grass feels like cotton and there are puppies playing and birds singing or some crap OR b) you are barefoot and panicking because you can't find your shoes and no one will help you, thus illustrating that you are questioning and doubting the very platform of your life (i.e. living situation, job, relationships, looming decisions/deadlines, etc).  i'm pretty sure i fall into category B.  awesome. 

so here my shoeless reminder has reared its ugly head again, not that i'm surprised.  being relatively happy with most of what's happening in my life right now, of course i have to have something that i'm doubting or unhappy about, right?!  i know exactly what it is and why it's manifesting itself in my dreams in the form of my barefooted panic, so i'm working to change it.  i won't go into details about it now, but those of you who know me will probably have a pretty good idea of what in my life i'm looking to change at the moment.  wish me luck and may you always have the good fortune to be wearing fabulous shoes in your dreams!