my analysis of my sleeping and dreaming

an FAQ i kind of mentioned recently was how i have been sleeping - and the answer is still the same...pretty well. i go to bed much later because i sleep in and sometimes even nap but pretty well nonetheless. i have attributed it somewhat to my sleeping habits previous to being pregnant. i woke up often in the night, usually to roll over, even when i didn't have a huge stomach. so if you're used to waking up many times a night, then pregnancy doesn't really change how you sleep.

i read an article in wondertime (a magazine recently mentioned in another post) about sleeping during pregnancy and since i'm here at the library again, can quote it. "the more times a person wakes in the night (and by the last trimester 97% of women wake at least once says the National Sleep Foundation) the dreams she recalls." so if you have spent any time with me at all in my life, you'll know that i always have some random dream to tell you about. and i guess it's because i wake up so often in the night that i have that many more opportunities to remember my dreams. when i wake up from an especially strange one, i have to think about it and replay it in my mind a few times before i try to go back to sleep - otherwise they're all forgotten in the morning. soif you've heard that pregnant women dream more - or you dreamed more when you were preggers - it could be that you always dreamed that much and it was just your erratic sleeping patterns that began helping you remember the dreams.

the earliest dream i can remember telling my mom was when i was 3 or 4 years old was when a stone gremlin on a fountain came to life when we drove by it in our volkswagon rabbit, jumped off the fountain and chased us. i was screaming to drive faster but it caught up to our car and jumped on it and then i woke up. as a grade school child, i remember my mom telling me, "you must have made that up." haha. i have a dream to tell tim every morning. when i carpooled with sally to agassiz everyday for 3 years, she often heard them too.

ANYWAYS - the article went on to say that "studies have shown that only 20% of the dreams we remember are "good" or "happy" dreams. The rest are fraught with anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, guilt, and confusion." wow. i would say most often my dreams are not any of these. they're just there. however, i'll leave you with a little portion my dream from the other night...

i have my baby and it's super tiny. like...the size of a hotdog bun. he's wrapped super tight in a recieving blanket and tim is holding him. he says to me, "what am i supposed to do with him?" and i said, "you can lay him down anywhere because he can't roll." so tim tosses him onto the couch. horrified, i tell him that he needs to be careful because newborns are fragile. but i check the baby and he seems to be okay because he's wrapped so tightly in his blanket.

umm...i guess that's...fear? anxiety? i didn't seem too worried about it in the dream...but maybe i should be worried...for tim's sake. haha.