Lately I awaken myself in the middle of a dream. They're never nightmares. I don't wake up trembling in a cold sweat. I just awaken and think for a moment of what I was dreaming about - then I return to sleep.
In fact when I hear others talk of their dreams, l find myself getting jealous. That's because they report exciting dreams. Drama. Gunfights. People chasing one another. Maybe they finally met the person of their dreams. They're always exciting and full of drama.
But not the dreams I have. They're in black and white. Usually, I'm homeless and broke. Looking for a job and a place to live. Looking for something to shoplift. For a long time, 30 to 40 years ago, I would have this recurring dream that I was walking down the street. And every house on the street was exactly the same. The same colors. The same doors. The same windows. One exactly like the next. That was an easy one to figure out. They were dreams about jail or prison - where all the housing was exactly the same. But I could never figure out the purpose of the dream unless it was just fear of being locked up again.
A 12 step friend of mine used to have similarly boring dreams. Only his were about waiting at a bus stop. And noticing that everyone who drove by was looking at him waiting for the bus. Neither of us coud figure out what that was about either. I though maybe he was self-consciousl
I know a number of addicts who have using dreams. Most of them never succeed in getting high. Because just as they're about to fix the dope or light the joint something will awaken them. And some of them have these dreams after being sober ten or fifteen years.
Maybe that’s why drug habits are so hard for some people to kick – the whole process gets deeply ingrained in our subconscious, so deep that we might never uproot it.
