Oh. I’m angry! So angry that I wouldn’t allow myself to go back to sleep. I’m tired enough, but afraid that the emotions swirling would carry over into the next dream, and I need to shake them from me!

I don’t think this has ever happened, at least not that I remember. Maybe as a baby, you know, when a baby wakes up crying and angry, but not as an adult. And I am so angry!

I’ve awakened in the middle of the night before and been afraid, after a horrible scary nightmare.  And I’ll reach over and find my husband’s hand and squeeze it to assure myself that the dream was not real, that I am truly safe in my bed under my cozy covers in my secure home, with no one chasing me or threatening me. And my fear has always melted pretty quickly. I can only think of one time where I actually had to wake my husband so he could hug the boogeyman away.

But this dream filled me with rage! I’ve rarely been so angry even in real life! And so helpless to the impossible situation!

I wanted to drift back to sleep right away, but my heart would start pounding and my stomach would begin churning and I could feel the angry tension rising, so I kept opening my eyes and taking deep slow breaths to calm myself. It wasn’t working, so I got up (4am) and made myself some chamomile tea and grabbed my laptop to type it all out. Then maybe I’ll be calm enough to fall back asleep.

Such an intense emotion. Anger. And I don’t handle anger all that well when I’m awake and alert in the middle of the day. Apparently, I am much more vulnerable in my sleep!

The Dream: I answered the doorbell to find several college-aged boys in pick-up trucks with furniture and ladders and wood. They barged into the kitchen and began measuring for the new cabinets they were going to install – in the most stupid place – next to the pantry doors! Then the girls arrived, with mattresses and bedding and brushes with white paint dripping from the bristles. They moved everything out of my childhood bedroom and began to move their mattresses in, plus climbed a ladder and were painting bright white around my posters on the wall, not even willing to match the paint with the white I already had! Apparently, the girl who was moving in was bringing a friend to move in with her – I learned this from the girls who had overtaken my room.

I was furious – who were these folks that thought they could just come in and rearrange my house? I tried to find the phone number for my landlord; I couldn’t, even though I somehow knew she was a very close friend. I wandered outside, to discover more girls settling into the side yard as some guys tore apart the wrap-around deck which overlooked the woods behind my house – the verdant green, lush forest of tall trees and deer and birds. They were going to extend the landscaped path to make room for the 20′ pool deck lounge chair they had. The new roommate was on the scene now, and I tried to stay calm as I asked her what the hell she thought she was doing! We were suddenly back into my bedroom – that’s when she told me we’d have to fit three full-sized beds in here. Wait! How?! There wasn’t any room to get between the beds, or to reach the closet. And now I was trapped in the far corner of the room.

But then I was walking down my childhood hallway and I stopped at my childhood bathroom to splash water on my face in an effort to regain my calm. I overheard the girls laughing at me and my confusion. Oooo, I got madder! I continued to my childhood kitchen, now full of guys on ladders, taking apart light fixtures and banging their hammers on the cupboards. I began frantically searching through cancelled checks, and finally located the landlord’s number at the top of one of them. But I couldn’t dial it – my hands were shaking badly and my fingers kept hitting the wrong buttons. I asked my sister to help me, but she walked past me on her way out the back door slider from my childhood dining room. Then my aunt appeared at the end of the kitchen counter, and took the phone from me and very calmly dialed the number.

When I got the landlord on the phone, it was clear she was talking to the girls in the other room on another line! So we’re complaining in her ears, she’s trying to answer each of us and talk us down, …

And that’s when I woke up. Full of rage at the uncontrollable circumstances! I became aware of my surroundings: I felt the cat lying down by my leg, I heard the kitten on the chair as he began playing with the pull-string of the floor lamp. I looked at the ceiling fan, and got my bearings in the bedroom. I tried to go back to sleep, but the rage kept rising, so here I am, typing it all out and chuckling as I see the different pieces from reality that morphed into my very upsetting dream.

The backyard woods were from across the street from our house in Florida, and the enormous lounge chair was from the pool in our Florida housing community; I’d been thinking about Florida when reading a friend’s Facebook post yesterday morning. My sister, who I just texted last evening. My aunt, who my mom mentioned in our weekly Friday phone call.  My childhood home in detail. The landscaped path – we had walked down a cool sidewalk in Philadelphia last weekend. Cancelled checks, which were in the box I was digging through earlier yesterday as I was looking for labels. The construction in the kitchen, and my husband has to finish some repair in the laundry room ceiling later today. I think I might have become my daughter in this dream – she used to live with her best friend (who is the landlord and just moved out a few weeks ago). I was asking my daughter about her last night, and how she’s adjusting to her new home. All of these features showed up in this very upsetting dream, but are mostly grounded in my last 24 hours.

So where did the rage come from? I’m not angry, nor have I been recently. Isn’t the purpose of dreaming to resolve unfinished emotions or conflict? I can relate the scenes and characters from this dream to my reality, but not the emotions.

What do you think it means? Well, you figure it out and tell me in the morning. I’m calm now and am going back to bed!