From the Draftbin: Dreams that seem real

In the draft section of my blogs I have a few topics that got started but never finished, or just titles for blogs that haven't happened yet. Among these, I had this title, "Dreams that seem real" and decided to tell you about it.

Do you ever have a dream that seems so real that you wake up and know it was a dream, but are uncertain if the things you were dreaming about were actually something that happened, but as a result you want to verify what the real truth is? This happens to me a few times a year, but the most memorable time in recent years was about a year and a half ago. It was early January and I had just returned from a New Year's trip to the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Arizona. I was in the middle of my first year of graduate school, but the new semester of school had not yet.

I dreamed that I had signed up for a semester-long internship doing informatics research in Brazil, and for some reason I really, really did not want to go. I don't remember the exact reason I didn't want to go, maybe something about not having a good project idea? I don't know. The point is, I was desperate to get out of going, and I was talking to my mom (the thing about dreams is that people seem to show up pretty randomly) about not going, and she was adamant that I go, because "you bought non-refundable plane tickets, so you have to go." And I was trying to get her to let me not go and just eat the cost of the tickets.

Now, I know that not all of the dream seemed real. For example, as we were boarding the plane, one of those planes that lands on water, there was a tiger in the water that was trying to eat me. I know that that never happened to me, and I know that the conversation I had with my mom wasn't real, but when I woke up I was feeling really stressed out that maybe I had signed up for a semester in Brazil and had completely forgotten about it. This dream is also a classic example of the kinds of dreams I have. Pretty much they are normal, everyday situations but with some kind of element of stress added in for fun. I don't dream of scary monsters or abstract symbols of my inner-psyche (as far as I know). Rather I dream that I've made some kind of social faux pas or have made a fool of myself, or somehow have been irresponsible regarding something under my stewardship.

Does that ever happen to you?