Even though I’m 42 years old, I’ve noticed a strange phenomena – I often dream that I’m still in high school or early college!
One recurring dream that I’ve had pretty much for as long as I can remember is that I’m in a ginormous school and I can’t find my locker – I wander aimlessly down the halls, going up and down stairwells, searching for a locker I should be able to find, with no luck. After I had my first child, I had a variation of the dream where I left my son in a random bathroom in my high school (nevermind that I’d been out of school for many years) and couldn’t find my way back to him. My subconscious was telling me that not only was I not going to be a very responsible parent, but I also had the maturity of high schooler still. High five, subconscious! Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Another common recurring dream for me is that I realize it’s the end of a school year and I haven’t attended class all year (either a single class or pretty much all of them) – I have to take finals that I’m going to fail. Often, the reason I’ve missed this class is because I’ve been suffering from some form of extreme depression and I’ve holed myself up in a cubby somewhere – a strange school attic or some other place. I can’t seem to face the world, and the prospect of failing a final just adds to my depressed feelings.
One last recurring dream (this one I don’t have all that often anymore) is that I’m in a play and don’t know any of the lines – often it’s a musical, and I don’t know the lyrics of the song I’m supposed to sing, so I just make something up that I think goes with the theme of the play. I’m almost always young in these dreams – probably because it’s been years since I did any serious theatre. (By the way, this dream must be common amongst us theatre people – I remember this was Willow’s part of the nightmare episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)
But lately, since I’ve been blogging, I’ve found that my dreams often mirror something akin to a YA novel! I often dream up YA romances where I’m the lead (often, I’m not really me, but I’m seeing the world through some random YA MC’s eyes). I’m living out an angsty YA romance where I so want the boy to like me, but he’s with another girl or some other random YA trope is keeping us apart. I also often dream in YA Fantasy – I often wish I would have written my dreams down because they’d actually make pretty amazing book plots – unfortunately, I can’t remember any of the really good ones in any sort of detail anymore.
Last night’s dream was a YA time travel story – I had to repeatedly go back in time to try to stop some sort of bomb from going off and blowing up my high school. Along the way, I managed to fall in love with a boy who went by his last name (which was Ellory, I think). He had a kind-of-sort-of girlfriend, but she wasn’t in the dream much and they broke up early on and we started dating. His best friend was dating a snotty girl named Sarah who I hated. But Sarah actually eventually ended up being my friend in later iterations and knew about the time traveling. In the end, right before I woke up, I realized that I had finally stopped the bomb, and I was so happy – and then I discovered that Ellory was happily dating Sarah in this new timeline (and his best friend was dating Ellory’s ex)!
I find it humorous that I so often dream in YA. You’d think my brain would have figured out by now that I’m well into my adult years. But I guess, considering how much YA I read, it’s not that odd that my brain’s a little confused!
Do any of you dream in YA? Do your dreams seem like YA novels? I want to know!
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