Vivid Dreams

The pregnancy websites talk about vivid dreams. I had one this morning, which I remember in two parts. In the first part I was one of a group of young people in some kind of custody. The setting wasn't a prison -- it was more like somebody's house. One of the things I did there was to look around the room for a weird little stool to sit on, because I didn't like the chairs there.

In the second part, I was travelling in what seemed like a train compartment with Jerry and a little blond boy. Out the window to my right was water, and a big surging wave rose up in the water and then it got huge and knocked me back in my seat. I was sliding backwards, thinking, "relax, it will be alright," but Jerry was shouting down to me because he didn't know what was happening to me. And then, startled by falling backwards, I woke up.

I think these were both dreams processing what I'm reading about labor. I think the first part is about going into a hospital for the birth. In the dream I'm one in a group and whoever's in charge is trying to treat us all the same. And the central tension is whether I have autonomy to make myself comfortable, or whether I might be punished for looking after myself.

In the second part, the surging wave is a labor contraction, and it knocks me back away from Jerry too fast for me to explain how I feel or how he can help. I think the little boy was the baby, sitting with Jerry watching me figure out how to work with my body in labor.

The wave dream, like I said, was startling. It made me jump and wake up. But neither part was scary-scary. And for all the horror stories that the epidural crowd tells about the pain the drugs prevent, and that the physiological-birth crowd tells about the cascade from continuous internal fetal monitoring to c-section infections, in both parts of my dream this morning, the emphasis was on how I was managing my present situation, even if it seemed pretty out of control, without being distracted by being afraid of what might happen next.