"But when I get to the doorway, there's no one inside."

Something's going on with me.

I know, because I'm having very emotional, lucid dreams nearly every night; I'm also talking in my sleep. My parents have told me that they always knew when I was under a lot of stress or going through something emotional, because I would scream things in my sleep for nights on end. And now I don't need anyone else to tell me that my nightmares are not just a coincidence.

For the first time in a while, I had begun to think I had everything under control, like I'd reached my next stage of Zen for a while; but apparently, my subconcious is telling me I'm wrong. So what is it? What did I miss?

Maybe I should start with the dreams themselves.

Last night's was intense; I dreamt of a huge casino-like place that had the kind of carpets you find in hotels (bold, continuous patterns), except the casino was just one big version of Great Times. (Great Times is a big arcade for kids that has a putt-putt and Go Karting outside.) In this dream, it was understood that I was there with a lot of kids from school for a school trip. There were so many people running around, and I recognized a lot of them. My two younger sisters were there, too, and it was understood that I was there to take care of them for the weekend. Everyone was running around, talking and playing video games. One of my favorite games, Rule of Rose, was there as a virtual reality gig,and I was really excited about that. At one point, I lost my sisters, and I started to panic. That was when I ran into Flo, and we started fighting. We yelled and yelled, and I may have started crying, and he was more than cruel to me. I understood that I didn't want to fight with him, but he refused to talk to me anymore, and he ran off. I felt devastated, and I tried to stop crying as I went off to find my sisters. There were some Go Karts, and I saw a lot of my friends from last year's Advanced Acting class in line, so I joined them. Eric Overton and I got into a kart together, and he drove; it was really fun, because the karts went insanely fast. We were playfully racing our other friends, and I was sad that we didn't win...

Then, as I was heading back over to play more of Rule of Rose in another part of the building, I ran into "Steve". He seemed upset with me, too, and just the way he looked at me made my chest tie up in knots. Even though I was dreaming, I could actually feel my gut wrench and my insides ache. He insisted that we go outside to talk, and after all that had happened in the lucidity of the evening so far, I didn't protest.

"I don't get it," he had sputtered. "I don't get you."

"It's not what you think," I replied in protest. "Let me explain, please..."

And then I gushed everything. I gushed how sorry I was for confusing him, how I was sorry for even talking to him again after all I had done and said...I was crying, and the sobs shook my entire body as I kept talking and talking and watching his face turn a shade of calloused understanding. And the thing was that I truly was sorry. Even when I'm awake, I'm sorry about it all. And it hurts, but I guess that since I don't have time to deal with it when I'm awake, that my brain takes care of it while I'm asleep.

That's just what I was getting at, I suppose. I can deal with nightmares, but it's when my dreams deal with real people and real things that I'm feeling that I start to pay attention. Dreams really are a reflection of your subconcious, and it shouldn't be ignored. When I used to be a worse(r) person, I would always have nightmares about being naked in pubic. Research told me that those dreams meant I had something to hide that I was terrified to let people know. And I did, then. But now that I'm trying to sweep out the skeletons in my closet, I'm not going to ignore issues left unresolved. Because who wants nightmares every night?