As pregnancy progresses, dreams are said to become more frequent. I've always been a vivid dreamer so I haven't noticed much change in the frequency of my dreams. I have, however, noticed that I seem to have more recurring dreams on a nightly basis.
None of them are new recurring dreams. For instance, I've dreamt about tornados for years. It's a typical dream and represents great, destructive change as well as starting with a clean slate. That makes perfect sense. The birth of a first child is a great unknown and as I've said, I don't have a very idealistic view of the first year. I expect it to be horrible, worthwhile, but still horrible. Before pregnancy, these tornado dreams usually took place at my current residence but lately they've been at other places, like the dentist's office. Also new in my messy subconscious is the combination of recurring dreams. I often dream that I find an extra, unused room in my house. The other day I dreamt that Evil Scientist, myself and the cats took refuge in one of these extra rooms during a tornado. Another tornado dream featured the destruction of my beloved Mustang (outside the barracks at Cold Lake for god-knows-what reason). That one isn't so hard to interpret. I'm clearly afraid that motherhood is going to completely destroy my Id.
This leads me to another classic “me” dream. I dream about a lot of cars. Of late, I'm always with one other person and they never let me drive and the journey is endless.
The few baby dreams I've had generally involve me doing something horrible like chain-smoking or binge-drinking. When I wake up and realize that it was just a dream I'm terribly relieved. I find that my most graphic dreams leave me waking up very emotional. The worst ones involve a detailed recap of every bad relationship I've ever had. Some relationships are easy to leave behind; my university one is one that only makes me laugh at myself for not bailing sooner when I knew it was so wrong. But then there's a couple of people that I've never been able to fully forget. I can't fall asleep after waking up so heartsick from one of those dreams. I sure hope Junior doesn't end up an emotional mess like me. I don't want him to brood over stuff the way I do. I'd hate to think he's going to go through life feeling worthless, disposable and easily forgotten.
I've thankfully been spared the most dreaded of all my dreams. I think the term for them is “night terrors”. For me, I wake up but then realize that I can neither move nor yell. Very occasionally, the dream continues long enough that a white mist appears at the end of the bed and I wake up screaming.
Of the research I've read on dreams, there are people who say that it's how the unconscious mind works out unresolved issues. There are also people who say that dreams mean nothing and should be ignored as any real tool of understanding the mind. I note that the people who fall into this latter camp do not tend to be dreamers themselves. I suppose if you've never woken up screaming in a pool of your own sweat it's easy to write the dreaming mind off as nothing more than a stage of sleep.
I don't think that there's anything mystical about dreams but because it's such a major part of my life I have a hard time writing them off. I over-think things and worry about everything all the time. My dreams are probably just my brain going into auto-pilot while I sleep. It's no wonder I never feel fully rested. Oh, to be one of those people who falls asleep the minute their head hits the pillow and peacefully slumber the entire night. Perhaps the weeks of sleep deprivation caused by a newborn will finally teach me to turn my brain off when I'm living on 2-hour power naps.