I had a dream last night that freaked me out so much I couldn't get back to sleep. I dreamt I was going to die next Wednesday.

Of course, this was a dream and dreams tend to be bizarre, and this one was no exception. In the dream there seemed to some underlying and understood issue at play involving me dying, I would guess, of cancer. And having had many of my family (in real life) die of cancer I had made the decision to take my own life rather than die a long, slow and drawn out death (if any of you have ever had to sit bedside for this, you'll understand). So. I had decided that in one week's time I would take my life rather than suffer this terrible fate. What's odd about this is that the decided method of suicide was to be poisoning, I think some kind of hemlock concotion, administered by a Buddhist monk. I was to go to this quiet and secluded temple to meditate with him and then drink this poison tea that he would make for me, and he would stay by my side while I died. This way I would not die alone, and my family wouldn't have to sit and watch me die either (how very thoughtful of me! LOL!).

What became frightening for me in this dream was the realization of my own mortality. I freaked out as I realized my life was nearing it's end and I was running around trying to say goodbye to everyone before I was to go, and there wasn't much time to accomplish all this. In my infinite wisdom, I decided I should even have sex with this guy I have been seeing the last few weeks (in real life!) because it was his birthday on Monday and it would be a nice way to say goodbye to him AND give him a birthday present. And hey... a little nookie before I die wouldn't be so bad, would it? (lol!)
Anyway, as the time neared for me to head off into the woods with the monk I got so completely wigged out that I actually woke myself up in absolute terror. Sleep was pretty tough to come by after THAT, lemme tell ya.

The night before that I had a dream that my mother and I were being shown around some kind of natural museum or something. This guy walked us around to various displays of creatures in glass cases, starting with a collection of bees. The unique thing about this beehive was that it was manmade, and looked like a bunch of middle eastern-style plaster houses all stuck together/stacked to make a hive. The experiment was to see whether or not the bees would use it, and indeed they did.

Next we moved on to a much larger display that had more of an open feel to it, like a zoo display. Inside the fenced-in area was a larger version of the manmade beehive concept, around surrounding it was what appeared to be a track, maybe two feet wide. It circled around the centre piece, much like an oval race track. The man showing us around encouraged my mother to climb in and sit down in the groove of the track, legs stright out in front of her. Seeing nothing in the cage to scare her, my mother obliged and climbed in. The guy then told my mother to sit still while he released the snakes into the pen. As he did so my mother, of course, began to freak out. It became much like an episode of Fear Factor as I coached my mom and told her not to freak out, everything would fine. Just hang in there! Soon there were a large number of snakes slithering along the track towards her feet. My mother's protests became more pronounced and she was shrieking that she didn't think she could do this, and again I assured she could. All she had to do was sit still and they would slide right over her. Don't worry, they won't bite, I said. Finally she snapped and stood up, shaking any remaining snakes off as she jumped out of the display and ran off. I continued on through the museum without her.

The guy who was showing us around seemed to have disappeared as I carried on with looking around. I came upon a stream flowing through part of the museum, complete with trees along the banks. As I looked into the stream I noticed there was a huge number of little minnows swimming about. Excited by my find I decided I would scoop up as many as I could (and there were MANY!) and take them home with me and put them in my fish tank. I began looking around for something to capture these minnows with and finally settled on a white bucket I had found (though a net would have been preferred). After a bit of fuss I managed to scoop a good number of minnows into the bucket, and feeling quite pleased with myself I stood and gazed at my catch, planning out what my fish tank at home would look like. Then I began feeling bad for the fish, thinking that it was cruel to take them out of this wonderful and far more natural environment only to put them in my tank purely for my enjoyment. I figured they wouldn't thrive as well or eat as well, and may well even give some disease or other to the fish already in my tank. So in the end, after all my efforts, I decided to put them back.