Counting Sheep

The Dream

I had a dream, which I’m becoming more and more prone to doing these days. Was a time that I didn’t remember my dreams. The entire time I was with Jon and had AIDS, I didn’t remember my dreams. But I’m remembering them more and more lately. Age perhaps.

So, the room is white, or the mise en scene is very white and seems 2D, but is indeed a 3D space where I find myself with a functional version of my Mom. Mom is as enamoured with the surroundings as I am and we’re seeing a bunch of lambs/baby sheep (in the dreams, we don’t call them lambs, we called them baby sheep for some reason). And the sheep are more or less a stuffed animal version of the real thing. But to us they seem 100% real. 

And as we are standing there, a white-haired terrier with a black tipped snout is herding them.

We are charmed by the dog and the baby sheep. My Mom and I are gloriously happy. We don’t know what’s going on, but we’re seeing so many of them, too many to count.

And so I woke and had my day and then called my Mom to tell her about the dream. She isn’t all there, so telling her about the dream confused her. But she went along with it. Said, “Honey, I sleep so soundly, I don’t dream.” And I said, “Yeah, but objectively, what do you think it means? Why are we in a dream about sheep and a white terrier?” And she said, “Oh, honey, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I said there were so many sheep. I wonder what sheep mean…in a dream. Is that a symbol or something. And then I said, “And there were so many of these stuffed animals that moved like baby sheep. Too many to count.” And I said aloud, “Oh, wait…we were counting sheep!”

And she said, “Why would we be counting sheep.” And I said, “Because I couldn’t sleep. So you must have been there to help me count the sheep.” And according to my FitBit, I had slept more deeply after that. Funny how I went to some subconscious go-to that included my Mom and the idea she had when I was a sleepless child and she’d tell me to count sheep.

Didn’t work back then. It apparently works now.