I dream a lot.  In my family, it’s become something of a hum-drum conversation. I wake up, and I want to share my dreams with everyone, and I’m still a little surprised or offended that people aren’t fully fascinated with the goings-on of my brain overnight.

When I was first taking an anti-depressant drug, I think it was Lexapro, I was finding that my dreams were ultra vivid, and much like movies in my head.  They were fully visual, with complete colors, details, sounds, even smells.  They were very real.  I figured that my mind was simply responding to a stimulation due to an increase in serotonin from the medicine.

I actually stopped taking anti-depressants approximately 10 months ago, and dreams were the least of my concerns at this radical departure.  Because I’ve had a variety of symptoms of mental depression, the worst of which were the suicidal thoughts, I took anti-depressants for a few years.  But sometime last summer I came to a place in my life that felt safe, secure, happy, and I began to wonder if I really needed the anti-depressants anymore.

I decreased them, and eventually was off entirely. All was well. I’m still well, and have made it through most of winter, including the difficulties associated with the winter holidays.  I have weathered quite a bit of anxiety about our financial situation– and a big concern that our children would not only have stop going to private school next year, but be forced to stay home THIS YEAR as well, because we didn’t have enough money to pay up on our current tuition.

All of this uncertainty, anxiety and fear are real, and I feel so proud to have coped so far.  I still have uncertainty but things are looking up.

And I’m pleased to say, I still dream lot.  What is the meaning of our dreams? If they are merely the idle playtime of the brain, why do some dreams seem to guide us, others just seem to be there to please us, and yet others make us wake in fearful sweats, grasping for reality as much as the blankets bunched up at our feet?

I woke up this morning feeling sweet.  My dreams had been good, so very good. I didn’t seek reality in the morning light to try to figure out whether a feeling of well-being was really called for.  I just accepted my good mood and went on to make pancakes and coffee.

After dropping off the kids to school, I put away laundry, and made my bed.  Then I had the urge to write, and write and write. Could be the  coffee, but it could be the dreams, too.