Dream a little dream, Part 2

A little about myself first - I'm considered mildly depressed, in a clinical sense. I suppose that's because I'm not crippled by my depression, but I generally have a low level of depression all the time, a sort of general unhappiness that fades at times (like when I watch ponies), and at other times it becomes a crushing weight that makes me just want to crawl into bed and not come out.

Or, I should say, I used to be like that. I'm still depressed, but not nearly so bad. After a couple of years of therapy, I have some tools to deal with my depression. I still get down, but not like I was.

I bring this up because of a recurring dream I used to have, but haven't in a long time.

It used to be there was a bus I used to ride in my dreams. It was black, and there wasn't much lighting on the inside, and it was crowded with hostile people all glaring at me. I never knew how I got on the bus, and every time I tried to get off, those glaring, hostile, faceless people would push me back into my seat, or ignore me, or, in the worse dreams, physically threaten me. The days I woke up from that dream were the worse.

Then I went to therapy. And one day, I was dreaming about that bus, that black bus. Except that everyone was just sitting on the bus, like a normal ride. No one glared at me, in fact, I could even make out faces. And outside the bus, instead of the eternal night I used to ride through, the sun was rising. I could see we were driving over a bridge, and I looked around with wonder and amazement. Then, the buss pulled into a rest stop, and the driver announced, "End of the line," and got out. For a moment, I panicked. End of the line? Is this it? Do I die? But, then, people started getting off the bus, and I went with them. Soon, I was standing on the side of a busy road, in some sort of intersection with a major highway and smaller roads leading off from this point. I could fly high above us (mentally at least, I don't think I was actually flying), and see that the roads went off in all directions. And I could see myself, standing on the side of the road, watching traffic go by, with no idea where I was, but feeling free for the first time of that bus.

When I talk to other people about dreams, one question almost instantly gets asked: "Do dreams have meaning?" I think, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Sometimes, it's just our brain sorting through events and random thoughts. Other times, it's something we understand on a subconscious level, but not consciously. So, it percolates up through the subconscious into our conscious by way of dreams.

The dream about my grandparents was just my three year old mind trying to sort through what I'd been through. The dream in the fifth grade about dinosaurs was just a fun dream. The bus dream - well.

The bus dream was my conscious mind telling me over and over again that things were hopeless, pointless, that no matter what I did, it would fail. The final dream, however, was something I finally understood on a subconscious level while in therapy. I don't have to do the same thing over and over again. I can get off the bus. In truth, I chose to stay on the bus because I was used to that, it was something I understood and could deal with, after a fashion. Trying to leave behind all those fears and hatreds - that was something I was afraid of doing. Because as bad as those things were, I understood them. I understood where I stood with them. It was the bottom, true, but I understood that. Once I got off that bus - or train of thought - I had many, many other roads open to me. And, once I refused to give them power, the evil people of my dreams could do nothing but let me go on. Their only power over me was the power I gave them. And I gave them a lot!

So now I realize I don't have to be that way. I can be whatever way I want to be. I can travel down any road - well, almost any road - I want to. And it's scary, and sometimes I just don't know what to do, but I'll keep moving forward, for anything is better than riding that black bus.

Do dreams have meaning? Of course they do. They have the meaning you give them.