Dreams From a Different Bed

Sleeping in a different bed every night has it's effects, often in the form of crazy dreams. As most of you know, I've always been a rather... vivid dreamer. My imagination and subconscious seems to manage a rather convoluted set of highly justified and semi-plausible situations when I'm sleeping. I've had my fair set of BER dreams as well, with crazy registration table dramas or AV equipment malfunctions set to absurd levels. Usually these come when I'm more stressed out--before or after a large number day, when the travel logistics are more difficult than normal, or when my life just seems to be getting in the way of day to day activities.

I feel like I should be sharing some of these while I'm still having them. I had a particularly vivid dream, or rather nightmare, last night that I remember in full. Just a warning: it's definitely kind of a downer. It went like this:

I awake (in the dream) and pry my eyes apart, sighing to myself for sleeping in my contacts on a plane again. I have a full, 3-seat row on a wide body plane (3-5-3 seat configuration, one of those typical details that my brain finds so important to note) to myself and have been curled up resting. My parents and my sister are in the rows across the aisle from me. Slowly I realize that the plane's trajectory is off... We are listing heavily to the side at one moment, then jarred back to an awkward leveling off. In the dream I pull back and see the flaps of the plane, which are clearly wrong--sticking out at very weird and contradictory angles. The pilot comes on and explains, "Our navigation system appears to be malfunctioning. We are working to fix it as fast as we can. The fasten seatbelt sign has been turned on. Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts" (Yes, I dream in airplane speak now.)

It is clear that the plane is on course to crash, soon. I remain calm, as do all of the other passengers (This is when I can tell that I am dreaming. I consciously choose to stay calm, as it is a dream, yet even then my stomach is sinking). After rocking and rolling through the flight, the risk of crashing is imminent and my stomach is rising up into my throat with fear yet my mind remains clear and calm, when suddenly everything comes back online and the plane rights itself. The passengers all begin to clap when the captain comes back on the speaker, "I need everyone to remain in their seats. ...please stop clapping... [the clapping continues] No, really, stop clapping!! [the clapping increases] YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND."

The cabin lights flash and turn to a dark-room red, as the flight attendants run down the aisles and stop in spaced-out points along the plane. The captain comes back on, "There is a terrorist act happening on this plane as we speak." The deafening applause abruptly stops as the plane starts the same turbulent movement it was experiencing before. I force myself to wake up.

The worst part of it all is that as I was laying in bed at 1:30am, I knew that I had to get on a plane this afternoon. I'm not afraid of planes, but sometimes dreams feel so real, they almost seem like a premonition. Luckily, I'm flying on regional jets today (2x2's, yay?) without my family so it can't be a psychic moment. It still took me a while to fall asleep again. Hooray for iPhone solitaire for calming my nerves!