you may say that i'm a dreamer...

...but I'm not the only one! It would make sense for me to be talking about dreaming along the same lines as John Lennon in his song "Imagine" considering that Martin Luther King Jr. Day was yesterday. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for MLK and all the people who had a dream of a better world where acceptance of all people was more prevalent. But, that's not the dreaming I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the mental movies most people (I say most because I'm sure there's a small percentage of the population that is unable to dream) experience during their sleep.

I am definitely someone who dreams. Sometimes I remember my dreams. Sometimes I don't. Often, I initially remember my dreams vividly but forget most aspects by the time my feet hit the floor and only remember that I had a dream but forget all important aspects (if not all aspects period) by the time my face feels the spray of my shower. Regardless of whether or not I remember them, I know that I've dreamed almost every night.

Often times dreams are weird. Some of the aspects that make dreams weird are that they sometimes:

1. Merge various moments from my day together.

• Example: I had an odd dream on a Tuesday night a couple of weeks after having watched the season premiere of "The Biggest Loser." The episode focused a lot on new mystery trainers that they never revealed. That same night I saw a commercial featuring Carmen Electra. This commercial caused a brief (but forgettable) discussion between my friend Harry, my wife and me. In my dream that night I was with a group of people training with Bob when he announced a new training DVD featuring a mystery trainer. Then he surprised us by revealing to us that the trainer was Carmen Electra.

2. Deal with issues weighing on our mind.

• Example: Most of my dreams lately have involved Polly giving birth to our baby. The other night was the first time I saw what she looked like in a dream. Naturally I don't remember what she looked like at all, but I do remember Polly mentioning in the dream that our baby looked just like her family.

3. Change locations and situations, but they still make sense.

• Explanation: Often times people and places change but for some reason they seem natural. In my dream, I might be in my house and I know it's my house, but it doesn't resemble a house I've ever seen before. Or maybe it is my house but when I walk outside it's not where my house is. Or weirder still, the house changes throughout the dream. Similarly, my wife might not really be my wife or my family might not really be my family but in the dream it all makes sense.

4. Blur the line between being asleep and being awake.

• Explanation 1: Sometimes I think I've woken up and then something crazy happens and later I find out that I hadn't really woken up, but woke up within the confines of my dream. Basically I'm saying that sometimes I think I dream within my dream.
• Explanation 2: Rarely (but it does happen) I realize I'm dreaming while I'm still dreaming. In these instances I can completely control my dream to make anything happen. When I wake up, I know that I was dreaming and not awake, but I also had control of my dream. So weird.

5. Blur the line between the dream and reality.

• Explanation 1: If my alarm starts going off while I'm dreaming, my alarm becomes a sound within my dream...and it seems to fit. Suddenly there's an alarm sounding to warn me of something on a submarine or something. After a short amount of time, I slowly wake up to realize the noise is my alarm. This also happens to me sometimes with people talking. If Polly is waking me up by calling my name, Polly is in my dream calling my name for a reason that makes total sense. Eventually I wake up and realize it was in reality she is calling my name, not just a dream.

6. Make no sense at all.

• Explanation: Sometimes there are absolutely no elements of the dream that make sense at all. I wake up feeling weird and out of sorts. These dreams can cause me confusion until sometime after I've taken my shower.

7. They repeat or continue.

• Explanation: There have been times when I swear that I've dreamed the same dream on multiple occasions. There have also been times when a dream seems to pick up where one from before left off or where a fantasy world created in a previous dream has a new chapter to it.

8. They cause a physical reaction/response.

• Example: I've had dreams that have caused me to physically react in the real world. A few months ago, I was dreaming that I was being attacked by big bird-bugs. Polly woke up to me sitting up in bed and flailing my arms behind my back to get them away from me. She asked what was going on. Apparently I tried to explain myself. She had fun at my expense for a while.
• Explanation: This also includes the jumping when you awake while falling in your dream or just about any nightmare I guess.

I'm sure I could come up with other aspects that can make dreams weird, but I think you get the idea. Dreams can be really weird. No, dreams are usually

1. I was in Heaven. In my dream, Heaven and Earth were separated by a strong fence with a gate. Jesus stood at the gate. Each day, I would go to the gate and Jesus would let me out to go play with my friends in the world (I know that this is not theologically accurate to how Heaven will be, but you'll see that this was necessary to get the point across). Each time, I would come back to the gate and Jesus would allow me to re-enter since I belonged their. One day I went out to the world to play with my friends as usual. And I returned to Jesus at the gate to be let back into Heaven as usual. Except Jesus would not let me in. He said, "You have been going back and forth between me and the world for too long. You cannot enter the Kingdom."

Needless to say, that one pretty much got my attention.

2. We were driving around in our old brown Ford Aerostar (many, many years after we had gotten rid of it) when suddenly the rapture happened. I felt something weird happening to my body as though I was about to go when I suddenly woke up. My body was completely paralyzed and I could not move.

I know there is a psychological reason for this due to stages of sleep and such, but it still had an amazing impact on me. I laid in bed and cried out to God.

Dreams are a funny thing. Usually they're just a way to decompress and relieve stress. Sometimes their wacky because you had pizza and soda right before bed (those are always the craziest). But every once in a while a dream comes along that feels like it's meant to tell you something. Then you're left to figure out what it's trying to say. One of my youth had one of those dreams recently too. She mentioned it to me. I did not have an interpretation for it. I told her to pray and ask God for one. That's the best I know to do.

How about you? You ever have a really weird or really meaningful dream?

All this leads me to question the legitimacy of the statement "Sweet dreams!" Really...are they?