I had recently, what can only be described as a photographer’s nightmare. I have a client due in just a couple of weeks and during the period of waiting it is not unusual at all for me to have a few anxiety-based dreams. Being on-call can be stressful. The stress is 90% enjoyable for me. I would describe is more as anticipation than anxiety…but as the due date draws nearer and, in some cases, goes by, I find myself waking up in the morning and grabbing my phone to make sure I didn’t miss a call (which has never happened, by the way)…
What was different about this time was my dream contained only photographers…
“I found myself showing up to photograph Sara Meidema‘s birth. When I walked in, I noticed Sara was laboring in the room from this photo with the shark, by my friend Jennifer Bogle:
All I could think of was what cool photos I could take with a laboring mom, that delicious window light and a giant shark.
I glanced over and saw Sara laboring and noticed that her midwife was Kim Gasper. Kim, Sara and I got to chatting…after a while (you know how time is in a dream) I heard Kim whisper to her children that they needed to go wait in the hall because it was time for Sara to push her baby out.
It was then that I realized that although I had been there for hours, I hadn’t taken a single picture. Not one. I ran over to my camera bag and started getting everything ready. My lenses wouldn’t go on, the settings were all wonky, I couldn’t get my camera to take a single shot. I walked over to Kim to ask if she could return my camera to the “factory settings” (she’s a photographer, after all!) Never mind that she was kneeling in front on Sara as Sara pushed her baby out…”
In my dream I never got a single image from Sara’s birth. Can you imagine? I am a hired as a birth photographer am there for hours and never even take a photo? In my dream I was sick with worry and regret…
Chuck thinks I’m crazy (he doesn’t remember his dreams at all). He often says to me, after I describe a dream to him, “No wonder you’re so tired all the time…you don’t even get to rest in your sleep”.
Last night my dreams including being mauled by a tiger (after I foolishly climbed in their enclosure). That’s what I get for looking at photos of people having full face transplants and pondering what it would be light to be attacked by a 200 pound chimpanzee right before bed.
I also dreamed that I had a female housemate (I have no idea where Chuck was) who had two children. We were setting up rooms for the kids. Apollo was going to share a room with Hezekiah and her preschooler. She had the amazingly brilliant idea to hire a professional to sing our boys to sleep…kind of like a night-nanny. I remember meeting the band we hired (they were from Canada) and liking them. Yes, we hired an entire band to move in and get our boys to sleep at night. As you can see, Apollo’s sleep issues have snaked their way into my subconscious as well…
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How about you? Do you remember your dreams? What is the craziest dream you’ve ever had?
Oh my. Those are awesome.
I have recurring dreams that I desperately need to dial a phone number and cannot for the life of me dial it properly. I also have a recurring nightmare that the brakes go out in my car and I just slowly roll through town without being able to park my car for hours, physics-be-damned.
I woke up this morning from a dream that my siblings (all of whom live far away) and I were planning a bunch together. I was making crepes while my sister cracked eggs and my two brothers-in-law set the table. It was lovely.
The dialing dream…I have definitely had versions of that! Fun that you got to “visit” with your family in your dream 🙂
This was my dream about having varicose veins removed, via hatchet! I was pregnant and having to wear support hose every day to prevent blood clots. I still laugh about it!
http://choresofopportunity.blogspot.com/2013/07/power-outage.html?m=0
I must say, your dream left me rather…speechless. If I were giving out prizes, I think you’d win!
Recently dreamed my husband and I were auditioning to be in a play. It was very much a play from my high school subconscious yet the other actors were members of the current SNL cast and I was desperately trying to figure out how we were going to manage the rehearsal schedule with our current ( and very real!) very busy adult schedules.
Wow, you guys have hit the big time now! I bet your blog would go viral too…
I’m choking on my oatmeal! Please stop! Hahahaha! Oh, you could have so much fun with a giant shark! I thought I was the only one who dreamed like that! Do any of your kids dream like you do? My husband doesn’t remember his dreams either, but some of our kids do and others don’t. Those of us who have crazy dreams like to sit around in the morning and share.
My kids do, for sure! I think Chuck sleeps so soundly he doesn’t remember. I wake up 20 times a night and remember 🙁
My daughter, granddaughter and I all have really crazy dreams. One I remember well happened the night before Easter in 2001. I was in a church and satan came in and told me if I got everyone in there behind a yellow line on the floor they would be safe.
When my siblings and I dream of flying we all swim freestyle in the air.
I have a recurring theme where I am unable to stop the car properly when trying to park or stop behind someone. I can’t stop myself rolling into another car no matter how hard I push on the brakes.
I am someplace unknown to me, and I’m looking for a bathroom, and looking and looking and can’t find one. I find rooms that look like bathrooms, but none of the stalls have actual toilets, so I keep looking. I finally wake up and realize I really have to pee.
Other times I am away from home and I can’t find my car and realize I have to walk home, and the more I walk the further from home I seem to be and I can’t remember why I didn’t drive there in the first place.
I remember my dreams, sometimes I wake up really mad at a person who did something in the dream, and I’m still mad a them when I wake up, and have to keep telling myself they didn’t do whatever made me so mad.
Gee, when I write them out like this, makes me look pretty crazy, and I’m really not.