Dreams

The other night I had a dream about Senegal in which I was conversing in Wolof. I don't remember having Wolof dreams while I was actually in Senegal. Instead, I tended to dream about people from America, often random people I hadn't thought of in years. I remember Barbara Kingsolver once writing about travel and the jet lag in our dreams: we dream of the places we were once we've left them. And I've found this to be quite true.

My dream set in Senegal was also a stress dream. I was getting ready to leave and had to sort my belongings into piles for what I wanted to leave in the village, give to other volunteers, and take home with me. But I hadn't started packing, and I was leaving the next day. Preparing to leave for somewhere without enough time is a recurring theme in my dreams. It's not something that happens frequently in real life, but that fear of being late and missing flights, etc. causes me a lot of stress in dreams. This type of dream indicates I am stressed about getting things done on time in my waking life as well. However, I thought that living in a society unconcerned with deadlines had helped to relax that fear in me.

I didn't even know I was that stressed out this week, but last night I had another stress dream about trying to get away from someone. It wasn't a simple chase scene, but more of a complex series of events involving strategizing, hiding, and manuvering.

But I'm sort of wandering in a direction I hadn't intended. Stress dreams can say a lot, but I wanted to ponder over my Wolof dream. How can it be that over a year after I've left Senegal when I feel inept at conversing in Wolof, my mind can still pull out those words in dreams? And why is it that we dream of the places we were, not the places we are?