Recurring Dreams - er- Nightmares

People tell you all the time that they have this recurring dream about someone chasing them, screaming at them, falling off a 35-story building, etc. etc. Usually though, it is the same dream over and over again. I'm a very vivid dreamer, and typically remember my dreams in great detail. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes its not, sometimes I'd just as soon not talk about it at all! Not this time though - LUCKY YOU!

I'm really not sure when it started, but since I was very young (not just last year either, so shut up) some of my dreams have a recurring theme rather than just recurring over and over. In other words, the subject matter is the same, the circumstances are pretty much the same, but the time, the place, and the people are always different. What is this topic of nocturnal adventure, you ask? Tornadoes. And not the fake Hollywood kind either, but the real, in-your-face, sounding like a freight train, blowing you off your feet tornadoes. The similarities between my tornado dreams are that I am never alone. I am always with friends, family, or both. I'm very brave. And nobody dies. Last night's dream was no different. I'm on our disaster management team at work - CERT. So, its stands to reason that I would be brave in the face of any danger. Yeah right - guess what? I'm a big coward! Anyway - in my dream, I'm leaving work at the end of the day and its summer time. For those of you that don't live in Iowa, summer is synonymous with severe weather around here. I'm leaving work, its hot, humid, and feels like a storm coming. You can feel the charged ions in the air and the smell of the wind is unmistakable. I look outside and sure enough, the rain is coming down in sheets, the wind is blowing, and I'm thinking, "There is no way in Hell I'm going outside in this." The hail begins, and not just little pea-size or even marble-sized hail - I'm talking about big-ass baseball-sized stones of ice that would give you a concussion upon impact, and stick you in the hospital for a week, likely in an irreversible coma. There is a counter in the lobby of my building (not in real life, just in my dream) that me and a few of my friends are standing behind watching the weather. We hear the sirens which always means that CERT has to do their thing! I start back to my work area which of course is right next to a window (what fun would a dingy office with no windows be?) and then I see the big-ass baseball-sized hail punching holes in the windows..but they look like the holes that bullets make in bullet-proof glass...funny looking only bigger (great description there!). I'm ready to save people from the evil lurking outside. I don my gear - lime green helmet and vest, grab my 50 lb. backpack full of band-aids, and look out the window. I hear the wind pick up and there, over the horizon, comes the funnel - black, ominous, and really pissed off. I grab my friends, head to the stairwell, and hide like a true hero till the storm passes. The sun comes out, nobody dies, and the building is intact. I wake up.

Like I said before, I have been having this same dream over and over for years. My mother thinks I'm crazy (Mom, that's what shrinks and medication are for!), and her mother - my grandmother - thinks its a gift and that I'm just like her! That is my preferred explanation; "Leave me alone! I'm just like Grandma!"

What does all of this mean exactly? Why do some people remember every detail of their dreams and others swear they don't dream at all? Do I remember them because my dream-life is much more interesting, intense, and magical than my real-life?

No - I think its the chocolate covered cherry Blizzard I had before bed.