Here's a weird dream for you. I might not have had any dream at all or of any significance last night, as has been the case lately, except for these series of events that caused deep sleep and odd dreams.

This is not the dream...this is what happened yesterday. Stan and I went to Pug Play. Not too many people there because it was still so wet/end of summer lethargy/who knows. Lots of weeds growing around the park, too wet to mow, I would guess. Stan picks up a weed to examine its flower structure...such a nerd. Upon plucking evil weed, I see it release a cloud of pollen. Oh, just terrific. I could've strangled him. Shortly thereafter I start experiencing extreme throat itching and then, sneezing. I'm pretty miserable, and I'm not armed with any equipment like facial tissue, after all, I was FINE in the morning. Usually if I have allergies during the day, I pretty much wake up with them at home, not acquire them because some nerdboy picks up a wafting weed in my presence. After we left and I went back home, I downed a Claritin. Claritin does help clear up my allergies quite well, unfortunately, it also leaves a host of side effects...tiredness, jitteriness, dizziness, weakness, depression, spacyness, sleepiness, insomnia. Yes, I know sleepiness and insomnia seem mutually exclusive, but it's true. Just read this consumer review on Claritin-D. I've experienced all those symptoms when taking Clairitin except for severe diarrhea, which, I honestly don't know how someone could have that happen since Claritin dries you out like an Arizona sponge. Claritin is pretty much a last resort measure. If my sneezing is so bad that I can't do anything because I'm constantly holding tissue to nose, then I'll take a Claritin, because if I won't be productive anyway, I might as well not be productive and not sneezing as well. If I'm still able to function with the allergies, I do not take Claritin. It's just not worth it except under extreme symptoms. So, I'm pretty much a vedge...physical and mental...for the rest of the day, unable to go for a bike ride (next time, Stan, don't waft the weed, ok?). I'm pretty much unable to work on much for fear that I'll make some dumb mistake due to my absent mental acuity. Because the inability to sleep from taking Claritin, I fortunately have an old and running out prescription for Lorazepam (before the health care provider switch...hope they'll renew that) which was prescribed for taking with Claritin for exactly that reason. Lorazepam is great...it allows me to sleep. Hard. It even allows me to get back to sleep if I wake up, which I seldom can under normal conditions.

So here's the dream, caused by the somnorific effects of the Lorazepam:

Somehow I was caught up with a bunch of Stan's relatives...cousins and the like, but also with people I used to work with. IRL, I really DID work with someone, back in the old Fort Collins Stinko's days, who married a 2nd cousin (or something like that...) of Stan's. Let's see, Stan and his cousin shared the same...grandparent? Except for her they were great grandparents ('cause her mother would actually be the cousin of Stan? Would that make them second cousins once removed or what? I have no idea, since I have no relatives at all, I never learned that secret code. So she marries this guy I work with and I marry Stan...That's too small town...that's too odd, too close for comfort. It's not that we were all close or anything, we weren't...we were just acquainted. But Fort Collins is like that...everyone knows everyone. That's when I knew it was time to leave. Yet I digress.

I don't really know the plot of this dream, but it was a lighthearted, fun dream. I'm with the husband of Stan's 2nd cousin (as mentioned above), and I'm with a supervisor I had at Depression's...two different co-workers, from two different times in two different states. We're in a car, and another one of Stan's cousins is driving (the cousin who we frequently visit when we go out west). It sort of looks like him, but it also looks like Dick Smothers. Yes, Dick Smothers, I kid you not. When you think about it, though, he has a younger brother who would be Tom Smothers, the dorkier one, and this cousin of Stan's would definitely be Dick, the straight man. The Smothers Brothers? WTF? So we're driving around in a car and the supervisor from Depressions and I are joking and in a jovial way I am putting her in her place for suspecting I was a bad worker or bad seed or something. I don't know if this was in fact true for this person, but it was in the dream. She also looked nothing like she did IRL. In the dream she looked like the wife of of a mob boss. This dream seemed to last a long time, and when I woke up, I was listening to the radio and they announced the name of the guest they had been talking to. Now here's the weird part. The name of the guest was the SAME NAME of the father of Stan's cousin who married the guy I worked with at Stinko's. Sure, it's a common name (like Mike Jones...not Mike Jones, but similarly common), but still. WEIRD. I also know that this could not have influenced my dream because the show hadn't been going on as long as my dream had. My dream had started much sooner than that show.

"A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness." -Miller in Repo Man

Labels: Dreams, WTF