Dream a Messed Up Little Dream of Me

When I was younger, I had that dream many people have. I'd be sitting in school trying to focus on a lecture with no pants on. We have all had that dream, whether we were at school with no pants on, at work with no pants on, at a party with no pants on, or at a funeral with no pants on. It binds us together as humans. As I've gotten older that dream has morphed into various forms - I've shown up to a meeting in dreamland with no shirt on, the Oscars with no push-up strapless bra on, and even the grocery store with no pants or shirt on. It changed into deeper and more complicated levels of social embarrassment and despair, like when I dreamed I had my son but he was a watermelon - and instead of having a smiley, lovey baby at my mothering group like all the other mothers I had a listless watermelon that started to rot a bit where I had dropped him and dented his fruity head. People judged me for not loving my watermelon as I should, so I was left to feign love and admiration for my watermelon in public...while crying and sobbing over my smelly watermelon behind closed doors. Last night, however, was by far the worst public humiliation my subconscious has inflicted upon me.

It started out as a regular dream, aside from us living in an absolute shack with five half-dressed and dirty children wandering around in filth and poverty. Ok, in my dream it was obvious we were poor - dirt poor. I wandered out of our bedroom and my husband (still Graham...not one of those dream husbands you get to borrow for an evening that your brain tried on during the week without you noticing and squirreled away for material later on) looked relieved and annoyed, while juggling what looked like our youngest spawn. Apparently I had been depressed in my dream, and spent two weeks in my bed sleeping and this was the first he had seen me in all of that time. I asked him what he'd been feeding the children, and he burst into tears and said Chicken Pie from the factory across the road. I took the half-dressed, filthy baby from him and apologised for my absence, and vowed to be a better wife/mother/dream person. First things first, though, I had to take a massive piss.

I can confidently pee in dreams without pissing myself in real life. This wasn't always the case, but the inevitable accidents that would happen in childhood when I tried it eventually turned into hit-and-miss attempts as I grew older, and now I can successfully pee in a dream with no real-life consequences. It's a skill I should put on resumes, I know.

I wandered around our small cabin/shack/house and found two toilets. One had a door on it, but was closed off with Police tape cautioning me not to go in. Graham let me know he had plugged that toilet up, and it couldn't be used. Great. Left to be used was a toilet with not only no door (Graham had burned it for heat for our little ones) but completely encased in see-through plastic. In my desperation, I had to use it. No sooner did I sit down than my entire extended family walked into our house for some type of reunion/party dig directly in front of my toilet. I had aunts slowly walking by, uncles, cousins, my grandfather even did a painfully slow looky-loo moment at me. I was desperately trying to finish my pee but suddenly suffered from stage-fright and couldn't put an end to the job. My family mocked me for this. I took the ribbing in a light-hearted manner, but was then faced with the horrible task of having to wipe myself in front of them all.

I got the toilet paper ready and sat quietly, willing someone to notice what stage I was at and to alert the others to give me some privacy. It didn't happen. I looked at the toilet paper in my hand, realizing I had to just get it over with and at least finally pull my pants up and end this horrific experience. So I got ready, tilted and wiped -

And my entire family stopped talking immediately, looked over at me and did a giant, collective "EWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!" all at once.

I woke up at that point, shuffled to the bathroom to go pee (you have pee dreams because your bladder is bursting in real time) and lovingly caressed the door before going in. I woke up Graham when I crawled back into bed -

Me: Graham?

Graham: Jesus Christ, what?

Me: Can you promise me you'll never burn our bathroom door for heat?

Graham: Why would I? I'd probably burn a few of the other less important doors first, Carole.

Me: Good. I promise I'll never lie in bed depressed for two weeks while you have to only eat chicken pie.

Graham: Fantastic, I fucking hate chicken pie. Shut up and go back to sleep.

So I did.