I dream frequently: I dream almost every night and unlike a lot of people I can remember a great deal of what happened in that dream after I wake up. Last night I had a horrible dream that had me so rattled that I was unable to go back to sleep even though I realized that it was not my real life and believe myself to be of sound and rational mind.
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This dream involved something that happens in my dreams frequently: I find myself not living in Asia although in the dream I do realize that I have moved to that place from Vietnam but am back in the United States to continue my education or have a job for some reason. In last night's dream as well as the others, I have made some rather 'merican financial decisions such as buying a car and entering into lease contracts on apartments. These things are frightening to me because of the fact that by having entered into these financial agreements, they make it difficult for me to move back to Asia - a place I have called my "home" for nearly 20 years now.
So in this dream I found myself in one of my real life college town locations and even had roommates again, one of which was an actual roommate while I actually was in college. We had a rather large house but I had many roommates and my bedroom was the worst one out of everyone's. In order to even get to my bedroom, I had to walk through the bedroom of another roommate. So this part of it was bad enough, but things get much worse as the dream carries on.
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The house was rather derelict as well, which is something that is also quite common in dreams that I have. I find myself frequently living in places that are falling apart and I would imagine there are some psychologists out there that would say that my subconscious is telling me that I am unhappy with where I actually live in real life, even though that is not the case.
I had trouble finding my belongings in this dream, including my computers which as I am sure many of you can agree, is a rather important part of my existence. I would have them one minute and then the next have no idea where they are. In the dream, myself and my roommates had just moved into this house so the place was rather chaotic.
Then things took a turn for the even worse when I heard an explosion of sorts in the distance and then I noticed large amounts of water coming over an embankment that was out the back window of our house. This water soon started to fill up the house and my panic set in as far as quickly finding my electronics was concerned.
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All the cars and houses in the neighborhood were quickly in danger of getting swamped and flooded, yet none of the other roommates seemed overly concerned about it. As I frantically searched for my computers the others were just calmly walking out of the house. I did find my computers and also a backpack of some other unknown stuff, presumably clothes, and ran them out of the house and put them on top of a car that was still out of reach of the water. When I went to return to the interior of the house a second time to see what else I could salvage, the house began to collapse and others nearby it were starting on fire. Emergency services were there demanding that I not re-enter the house but I did so anyway. I'm not sure what I was hoping to retrieve because the truly important things in my life were already outside on top of the car.
I guess you could say that I am impressed with my virtual bravery because it was definitely a dangerous situation with flood water, collapsing buildings, and fire all around me.
Then, when I returned to the exterior of the house with god knows what else I found, the car that I had placed my computers on was no longer there. My roommates were sitting nearby and I frantically asked them where the hell the car had gone but they seemed unconcerned and even dismissive of what I was so worked up about. I got mad as hell in the dream but alas, I eventually did find my computers sat on the side of a wall. At that point I wasn't totally relieved because they had gotten wet.
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Like many of you out there as well I'm sure, a lot of my life and a great deal of my important information is "in the computer" so the dread continued in the dream despite the fact that at that time we had no electricity. My roommates remained unconcerned about the entire situation and this enraged me. Also, it was at that time in the dream that I started thinking about the impossibility of returning to Asia AND I also realized that I had not yet signed up for any classes for the upcoming semester.
It all seems a bit funny to me now reading all of that but it was extremely concerning in the fictional scenario.
Now here are a few things to note about my life in particular: While I was in college there actually was a massive flood that basically destroyed the entire city and I experienced Marshal Law while I was in university. The entire city was evacuated after utilities were destroyed due to the water, electric, and sewage treatment centers all being flooded. I can see the military helicopters circling above as well as soldiers and military vehicles occupying the entire city as we were all forced to leave until things could be worked out. When we did return to school a month later and surveyed the damage to our old apartments, basically everything was destroyed inside of them. We were given vouchers for new furniture and new apartments but this doesn't change the fact that this was a pretty traumatizing time for all of us in that college town. It wasn't a flash flood like in my dream: it took many days for the water to actually start to get into our apartments but still, I actually did live through that so that might be why this particular scenario entered my mind.
The fear of losing all of my data is something that I think most people face every now and then, so it is understandable why the fear of losing my computers was in the dream as well. Furthermore, I have a great fear of ever needing to return to "regular life" in the western world so it makes sense to me that I frequently dream about simply being back in American life which, no disrespect intended, I absolutely loathe.
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I was so engrossed in this dream that when I did wake up I was shaking and it took me a while to realize where I was: In my apartment in Vietnam, safe and sound with the air conditioning on a bit too high and my computers safely in the other room.
I still couldn't shake the rage and fear that I felt though and this resulted in me being unable to return to sleep even though it was 4:30 in the morning.
So that's been my night and in a way I am glad that it happened because it kind of refreshed my appreciation for the life that I currently have devoid of losing computers, useless roommates, floods, fires, and living in USA.