Night time thoughts

It's crazy. Every evening when I go to bed I am full of thoughts about what I can write about the next day. I get visions of pretty things, gorgeous colours and witty thoughts to put down in this space. When I get up, those thoughts have vanished with my dreams of the night.

One dream did stay with me from the night before last. Normally when I have dreams I am not enjoying, that make me stressed or worried, I am capable of saying to myself "this is just a dream" and to stop, rewind or change what I am dreaming about or to simply wake up.

Yesterday morning however I was having a long and involved dream about going back to Japan, to the same place I spent a year teaching English. I had for some reason agreed to go back there and teach again for year, despite the fact that I really don't enjoy teaching. I had already gone into the office and met the old team and some new people and was committed to the position.

Now I was sitting in the bar of the hotel where I was spending my first night, talking to other local English teachers about how I wasn't supposed to be here. How I didn't want to be here. How my lovely boy was in another country where I was supposed to be with him. I couldn't believe that I had made this decision as it was clearly the wrong one. At this stage I was getting quite panicked and the other teachers were not helping. Their contributions consisted of saying unhelpful things like, "you've committed to it now. Nobody is allowed to back out once they've committed".

Even as I write this I feel a shortness of breath and the rising sense of panic from the dream. I remember thinking, "this must be a dream. Stop it now. Change it to the other country, the one where you want to be" but I couldn't. It was amazingly vivid. It was also odd and worrying. When I finally woke from it I had to tell the boy about it straight away. He rolled over and hugged me and mumbled "Don't worry, I'd go with you if you had to go", which was very sweet.

I still can't get to the bottom of it. More than likely it doesn't mean very much but surely some dreams are your subconscious trying to speak to you. I've decided to chalk it down to my mind telling me that it was the right decision to move here, despite the frustrations that I've encountered. The real panic was about being separated, not necessarily about the place itself.

I also think I need to keep a pen and paper beside the bed to note down the more interesting thoughts I have so that I don't regurgitate my boring dreams for the world to read!