Odd Dreams

Now that work has started up again I don't do anything new or unique--which means I have nothing exciting to write to my son about.  Accordingly, I've switched from letters to cards and post cards, which he's still thankful to receive in Basic Training.

I had a very strange dream a night or two ago, and it reminded me of another strange one I had months or perhaps a year ago.  I'll start with the older one first.

I was a cadet at West Point.  In some of my dreams I'm a cadet "again" even though I'm my current age and recognize that I've already graduated, but I don't think that was the case in this dream.  I think I was a cadet of "cadet age".  I was either a junior or a senior.  Either way, I was very unhappy and, after long deliberations, decided to resign.

So resign I did.

No longer subject to the stresses that had put me under so much pressure, I thought I'd be happy, but I wasn't.  I started to second guess myself and decided that perhaps I'd acted too hastily.  I talked to some officers there and, after an absence of only a couple weeks, I got reinstated.

It didn't take long to realize, though, that going back was a mistake, so I resigned again.  I must have been a senior in this dream because I recall that I wasn't so far from graduation, perhaps a semester or so.  But I was so sure this time, West Point wasn't for me, and even though I regretted not finishing my degree there, I left again, this time for good.

I feel so many strange emotions when I remember that dream, almost as if part of it were real or something.  What is it in my subconscious that would fabricate such a story--about a place I haven't attended in over 25 years?  It's all so very odd.

So a couple nights ago I dreamed that I was my current age and status but for some reason was compelled to go back into the army, but instead of being an officer I was going to be enlisted.  I remember thinking, Is Austin (my son) going to outrank me?  Then I was relieved to realize I'd be a sergeant, while Austin is still a private.

And that was the end of the dream.

Are these weird, or what?