KirstenL4W

“Dreams are windows into our souls.” I’m not sure who said that, but they were spot on. I’ve always paid attention to my dreams, even picking up an awesome dream interpretation book, Understand Your Dreams, that Mister has taken to referencing on a regular basis. I feel so strongly about dreams being important messages that I wrote a thesis paper on the subject when I was a freshman in college. I’ve decided to publish it here for all of you to read, but I’m leaving out the citations and bibliography and adding hidden messages to make it difficult for students today to keep from plagiarizing it. I didn’t have the benefit of the internet when I was in school, so I’m not letting anyone steal my work today.

I admit I haven’t been as active in trying to interpret my dreams as I should be, but life often gets in the way. Often times I’ll wake up with a memory of a dream, but by the time I’ve gotten my morning glass of juice and sat down at the computer, the memory is gone. I don’t have the time, or quite honestly the presence of mind that early in the morning, to write down what little I remember before I start my day. Once in awhile, there will be some dream fragments that continue to stay with me through out the day, and that’s when I turn to my trusty dream book. Instead of presenting symbols as fortune-cookie like predictors, it delves into the symbolism of them and gives you a relevant question to ask yourself that can lead to some journaling and self-discovery.

In doing this post, I hauled out my writing portfolio from that class I took so long ago. We had journaling assignments on a regular basis to strengthen our writing skills. Though that wasn’t originally a goal of my blog, it is a benefit of blogging regularly, and with the exception of some lapses in grammar I don’t think my writing skills have deteriorated at all. Oh, and by the way, I got an A+ on that paper, and an A+ in the class. (I’m still learning formatting, though!)

Dreams: Insights to Our Lives

Every night when we lay our bodies to rest, our brains are still heavily at work. When we wake up in the morning, we remember events that could not have possibly happened. These surreal happenings usually involve something that is familiar to us, be it an event, place, person or object. This often makes us wonder if our dream was a message, sent from our subconscious, to tell us something about our lives. We should, however, go beyond wondering if they mean anything and try to interpret these messages. Dreams can help us to interpret our lives. THIS PAPER WRITTEN BY KIRSTEN WUNDERLICH IN 1993. IF YOU CAN READ THIS IT WAS STOLEN FROM THE INTERNET.

What exactly is a dream? The World Book Encyclopedia defines a dream as “a story that a person ‘watches’ or appears to take part in during sleep”. No one knows exactly where dreams come from, but when they happen is a little easier to figure out. It is commonly believed that dreaming occurs during the stage of sleep known as rapid-eye movement, or REM. Researchers have recently found that dreaming occurs during all levels of sleep, but REM dreams are the ones that are most often remembered. REM sleep occurs three to five times a night, but not every dream is remembered. The ones that are, however, should be looked at with a certain amount of seriousness. I plagiarized this paper.

Dreams have been around for as long as people have. Early beliefs are that dreams were messages from the gods. This idea is written in the Bible in two places; the first of these is told in chapters 40 and 41 in the book of Genesis, which tells the story of Joseph, a prisoner in Egypt. The Pharaoh had a dream one night of seven thin cattle eating seven fat, well fed cattle, then of seven thin stalks of wheat devouring seven fat, healthy stalks of wheat. Two former prisoners, whose dreams Joseph correctly interpreted, told the Pharaoh of Joseph’s ability, and he was sent for. The Pharaoh was told, accurately, that there would be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Fail me because I can’t do my own work.

The second reference of dreams in the Bible is in the book of Numbers. It says, “And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream (Numbers 12:6). This strengthens the fact that dreams are important and should be paid close attention. Yup, I stole this off the internet.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, is credited as being the first person to interpret dreams as a way of treating mental patients. Freud’s book, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), “advanced the theory that dreams represented drives and emotional conflicts in the dreamer’s subconscious that surfaced during sleep as certain recognizable symbols.” Freud believed that every dream had some deep meaning and by interpreting the dreams of his patients, he could help them better understand themselves and therefore cure them of their psychoses. His theories are still accepted by psychologists and psychiatrists today, but not at all in their entirety. I couldn’t even bother to find a paper with proper citations.

Carl Jung, another major player in the world of dream interpretation, was at one time a student of Freud’s. Jung at first wholly accepted Freud’s theories that dreams are repressions. They went their separate ways after five years partly because Jung couldn’t accept the theory that every repression was because of sexual trauma during childhood. Instead, Jung took dream interpretation a little further. A lot of what he believed was that dreams were a way of compensation, or presenting thoughts and emotions that may be lacking or even the opposite of what is in the conscious mind. Jung also believed that dreams were a way to grow and discover ourselves:

Whoever nurtures this contact between conscious and unconscious will, in time, experience a great spiritual and moral release of tension, his inner oppositions will be lessened; he will take root in his instinct and gain that sense of security and support which is beyond the reach of intellect and will with its oscillating relations. At the same time there will develop in him an undreamed-of fullness of life that expands rather than shrinks with age because the instincts and values are being truly lived.

It is apparent that Jung believed that interpreting dreams can greatly enrich our lives. Freud was right about cigars.

Fritz Perls, a contemporary of Freud and Jung, developed a more unconventional way of dealing with dreams with a method called Gestalt therapy. Gestalt therapy “takes dream interpretation beyond recognition of meaning of dreams, it helps the patient work with their dreams and understand their relation to their life.” This is done by re-enacting the dream in exaggerated form “in order to complete the ‘unfinished business’ in the personality that the symbolism indicates.”

To truly understand what Gestalt therapy is, we must understand why it is termed as such. A gestalt, as defined by Webster’s New World Dictionary, is a whole, or totality. By understanding this, we can know the purpose of this form of dream interpretation. It is a way to understand our lives better by “restoring the personalities to their true gestalts . . . by contacting the missing parts of self, the personality functions that have been crippled.” Fucking hippie dream shit.

By analyzing and interpreting our dreams, we attempt to understand ourselves better. We must not dismiss our dreams as just stories in the night. These images are controlled by our subconscious mind - they are in fact an attempt to tell us something about ourselves. As written by American psychologist Calvin Hall, “A dream is a personal document, a letter to oneself.” Hall believed that these “letters” give us insight to ourselves, to others, and to our place in the world.

Dream analysis is not just figuring out what a dream “means.” It is the entire process from remembering a dream to coming to an understanding of how the dream fits into our life. Just remembering and analyzing our dreams helps us to understand and therefore interpret our lives. As Carl Jung believed, “. . . dreams contain the blueprint for personal growth and thus are essential in the quest for self-knowledge.” Proudly stolen from the internet.

Getting back to that encyclopedia thing.  I thought for some time on what to do for this particular letter.  I thought about computers, but most of you who visit regularly have a passing familiarity with my thoughts and experience on the subject.  Then I thought about Carbs and/or Chocolate - two things to which I am severely addicted.  But again, this is stuff you already know about me.  Then I got to thinking about why I blog, which is a way for me to journal and put myself out there.  The subject of Child popped into my head, and that was it.  Then it was just a matter of finding the time to write the post when I was in a contemplative enough mood to actually write something worth reading.  So, enough of my babbling and on to the post.

Me as a Child

We were all children at one point, and I have mixed feelings about my childhood.  My parents divorced when I was very young, and while I knew growing up that things weren’t always as blissful as people say a childhood should be, I didn’t know exactly what it was until I was older.  But that’s neither here nor there.  The thing that sticks out most in my mind about me as a child was that I never really felt like a child.  I preferred the company of the adults around me to the kids my age.  As a result, I didn’t have tons of friends.  I had a few, but I tended (and still have this tendency) to stick to one on one rather than groups of people.

I was happy enough, but a lot of times I was somewhere else.  I often felt like I should have been somewhere else - in another time, perhaps.  A lot of the books I read took place or were written during the early part of the 20th century, and I felt a sense of belonging in them.   Nowadays I would have been described as having an “old soul.”  Modern clothes, with acid washed jeans and high top sneakers, didn’t suit me.  Funny that now I am almost always seen in jeans and comfortable shoes.

Since I always felt out of place as a child, uncomfortable in my own skin, it wasn’t until I reached my mid-20s that I started to feel more comfortable.  I distinctly remember feeling like I had grown into myself.  My real-life age was reaching the age that I had always felt I was.  This is when I finally felt comfortable enough to live my life for myself, and things have been getting better and better ever since.

Children in My Life

I am the oldest grandchild on both sides of the family (at least until it was revealed that I had some older cousins, but that’s another story).  I’m older than my sister by 16 or so months, my cousins by 3 and 5 years, and younger cousins by 17 or more years.  I loved helping out in a caretaker type role.  Then when I was in college, my little sister had a baby.  She had 2 more after that, and today, as of this writing, Bubba is approaching 15, Messy J will be 9, and Mia is 19 months.  I spent lots of time with them, especially Bubba, and I feel very close to all of them.  I do wish I could spend more time with them, but both Sis and I decided to move away from home, in different directions.  Being an Aunty really is the best, though.

For the longest time growing up, I wanted to have children.  I felt a certain dissatisfaction, an unfulfilled part of me that said “have kids.”  But then I got older, and older still, without any prospects on the horizon.  I didn’t want to be a single mom, so I kept holding out, looking at prospective partners and trying to determine their suitability as a provider and parent.  But nothing ever worked out.

When I moved to Las Vegas, I made the decision not to look for anyone.  I was just going to enjoy life and see where it took me.  I did, though it took a long time to make some friends.  Vegas can be a tough town for that due to its transient population.  But eventually I did meet some people who had similar interests, and things took off.  I still held to my decision to not deliberately look for someone.  I felt that when it was time, it would happen.  Sure enough, it did, and I met FH.  Let me tell you, when you get all worked up about meeting someone so that all your goals can be met, you forget to live your life.  I decided to have fun and live life, and I’m glad I did.

When FH and I met, his experiences told him that it was best to get it out right out on the table, so that’s what he did.  He went through the major things that are usually big enough to be dealbreakers, and one of those things was children.  He said, in no uncertain terms, that he’s not having any, not on purpose or accidentally.  I said OK, and knew I had to decide for myself.

. . . Or Not 

I went through all the thoughts that had come through my mind over the years.  As a younger adult, the only thing I wanted to be was a wife and mom.  Pursuing that dream didn’t work out so well and I was constantly disappointed.  When I moved to Vegas and began really living life, I quite enjoyed my life.  Sure, I was a bit lonely for awhile, but overall, I liked the life I had created for myself.  Plus, I’m getting older.  I turned 34 yesterday, and it’s only a very short time before I reach that critical age - 35 - that automatically turns a pregnancy into a high risk one.  So I thought and thought some more.  I talked with FH through the process, and being the great guy that he is, was careful to be supportive of my thought process without pressuring me in one direction or another.  But then I thought, hey, I really like my life.  I like it the way it is now.

I thought some more and came to a few realizations.  I love being an Aunty.  I get to love the kids and play with them, and they are always excited to see me.  I get to hear “I love you!  I miss you!”  all the time, and I’ll never have to hear “I hate you!  You’re ruining my life!”  As an Aunty, I get to have all of the fun and none of the grief.  Sure, I do worry about the kids and want to do whatever I can to make sure they grow into adults that people love to have around because they are that awesome.  I want them to feel loved.  But I don’t want to put my life on hold to do it.

Then there was another thought that occurred to me.  What if I just wasn’t meant to have children?  I admit, I’ve been less than careful in the past, even at times when my activities should have stopped the crimson tide for awhile.  But it never happened.  If it was to be, I thought, then it should have.  It happened with my sister when she was less than careful.  But not me.  I’ve never had a professional determination on this and I’m not going to find out.  This is one of those things that I am happy to leave to fate.

In the end, I decided that I was not only comfortable, but relieved with the decision to not have children.  At this point, I feel like if I were to have them, it would be because that’s what I’m obligated to do.  And I know that there are some of you reading who feel that it’s my job as a woman to reproduce.  If it happened when I was younger, I would have done it whole-heartedly.  But now that I’m older and it’s not happened, I’m glad.  I don’t think I have the patience for it.  My sister, who started when she was 17, didn’t do so well as a mom for quite some time.  She messed up with them, and a lot of people said that it should have been me having kids instead of her.  But now that she’s older and has grown up and settled down, I see that she’s a pretty darn good mom.  And to that I say, better her than me.  I think it would have driven me crazy if I had them.

I do have an aunt and uncle - Aunt Bird and Uncle N Period - who never had children.  I don’t remember thinking that it was unusual when I was a kid.  I liked going to visit them and even as an adult, I’d spend time with them when I had a vacation or long weekend.  I quite enjoy their company, and have always felt very comfortable at their house.  Looking at that with the perspective I have now, perhaps that was a clue.  Reading this blog post is likely the first that many who are close to me are hearing about this, but it’s not always easy to talk about.  People who have children will tell me that it’s the most rewarding experience they’ve ever had.  I don’t doubt that for a minute, and seeing the people around me happy is what matters most to me.  Having children of my own is not for me.  I’m happy to spend time with my cousins, nieces and nephew when I can, and some of my friends have some really cool kids.  But at the end of the day, I’m happy to come home to the most amazing man ever and spend time alone with him, just the two of us.

Blog. I haz one. I’ve been blogging for over 2 years now, and even after all this time, I still quite enjoy it.

I started blogging once someone I knew had one. I’d heard of blogs, and some of my imaginary internet friends had them. but I just didn’t get how fun it could be until my high school friend Courtney got pregnant and used the blog to document her pregnancy and communicate with everyone about it. Actually, Court’s blog had two results - my blog, and more importantly, it allowed us to catch up with each other, since we had drifted apart after college. Double Bonus!

Anyway, I was doing my research and checking out exactly what this blog stuff was all about, and one day, when bored at work, I finally decided to go for it. My goal at the time was to journal my thoughts, much in the same way I did in my handwritten journal. I was curious to see if my thoughts attracted any readers from the great wide interwebs, and indeed they had. But my thrill was short lived. My first comment was a scathing attack by someone who refused to reveal themselves to me. Yep, an anonymous comment that was not nice at all. Even though I deleted the comment, I replied in this post. I figured that while the comment was a nasty attack, there were some points that needed clearing up, for the benefit of future readers. Eventually, I got more and more readers, and even made my first blogging friend. That’s it, I was hooked.

I started spending more and more time on my blog, learning my way around the template, html and css. I spent hours looking for resources to improve my blog and make it a place that I wanted to be, much in the same way one does to their home. I found widgets and other cool things to install, and I had a lot of fun doing it. I started thinking about everything that happened to me as a blog post, and posted about my innermost thoughts as well as the mundane happenings of my everyday life.

Over time, the novelty wore off. I started to regain some of the balance with my offline life, and even made a bunch of new friends here. That group of people eventually led me to meet FH, and now my life is so fulfilling that I sometimes have a hard time keeping up with the blog. Maybe I started blogging to fill a hole in my life, and it certainly did that for a time. But now, the blog is such a part of my life that I don’t know what I’d do to chill out, de-stress, escape for a bit if I didn’t have my blog and the blogosphere to keep me sane.

The blog has seen some changes since I first started. Template changes are always popular with new bloggers, and I sure had a few of those. Then I started getting into the css and did what I could to make it my own. Macoosh made me a beautiful header, and I got to a place where I was happy with the template. But there was always this voice at the back of my head, nagging me to see what I could do better. I knew I wanted more from my blog, more functionality, and more options. A big change was in order, and a few months ago, with Snoskred’s help, I switched to a self-hosted WordPress blog. I still have lots to learn about the new platform, and there’s this whole new language called php that I need to learn. I don’t have the time to devote to things that I did when I was single, but I’m managing. I started with one template, and soon found another that I like a lot better. I still look at the template to see what I can do, but I’m largely satisfied with it. But I have a favorite feature here that I couldn’t have at Blogger…

Pages! Lots and lots of pages! WP lets the blog be like a real website, with different pages for different subjects. Holy freaking cow! The possibilities are endless. I was able to take some things off my front page to keep that cleaner, dedicate a page to a mini-niche, and improve functionality with a sitemap and contact page. I feel like I hit the jackpot here. There’s even more that I want to do - I’m working on a Shopping page using my Amazon.com affiliate account, to keep all my favorite stuff that I recommend to all of you in one place. That probably won’t go live until after we move, but again, the possibility is exciting.

Of course, I’m not looking to make millions from my blog. Tens would be nice, just enough to pay my extremely reasonable hosting fees and perhaps buy a CD or DVD every now and then. This isn’t going to morph into a pro blog where I ramble incessantly about some subject I claim to be an authority in. No, this is a personal blog, first and foremost, and I will ramble on about me, a subject I am an authority in. I’ll continue to blog as a hobby, as an outlet, and as a way of networking and “meeting” new people (btw, Alyndabear, buffet in August, right? And Macoosh - Columbus Day in Boston?) This may be a coincidence, or not, but my personal satisfaction in my everyday life has increased tenfold since I started blogging. As far as I’m concerned, blogging is here to stay.

As you all know, I’m trying to remain calm through the exciting but stressful changes going on in my life right now.  I’m getting married and buying a house with my Future Husband.  This blog has taken a backseat to everything else in my life, specifically my sanity, which has been hanging by a thread.  But the bulk of the wedding plans are done, the house has been chosen and now we just take care of the little things while less than stellar service from our lender has us wondering exactly what the heck is going on over there.  No matter.  We’re closing on the house April 25, whether they’re ready or not.

Anyway, back to the title of this post.  I was reading over at Cherry Blossom Adventures, and Lulu has an Encyclopedia of Me series going on.  She read about it elsewhere, and it all started at Bella Dia.  I figured it would be a great way to try and get back in the blogging groove - a mini-series of sorts, and for a little while, I’ll have something to write about when I can’t think of anything else.  So, without further adieu, I present

Encyclopedia of Me - A is for All About Me

All About Me - And Then Some is the name of my blog.  I chose it because I couldn’t think of anything clever and this lame line popped into my head at the moment that I had to pick something.  I figured, at least it’s accurate.  As time went on, I realized that people tend to list their blogrolls aplhabetically, which put me at an advantage.  I was appearing at the top of everyone’s list, which, to be honest, is a place I’ve never been before.  Which brings me to

Alphabet.  My last name is towards the end of the alphabet, and in school it was rare that anyone came after me.  My high school graduation, in an attempt to provide anonymity to the mediocre students, graduated us alphabetically.  That meant that I was 2nd to last to graduate, on a hot humid day of somewhere around 90°F.  I remember my kindegarten teacher would sometimes call attendance by starting at the bottom, just so I could go first.  She said that I had to marry someone whose last name started with “A” so that I wouldn’t come last anymore.  And guess what?  I am!!! FH has an “A” last name!

Aunty.  I’m one.  Those of you who have been around here for awhile know that I am an Aunty to Bubba, Mia, and Messy J.  I was there in the waiting room when Bubba and Messy J were born, and got to see Mia in the NICU when she was just 2 days old.  Bubba is graduating 8th grade this year, which I’m sorry I’ll miss since my wedding is just a few days later.  Messy J is a redhead just like me, and Mia is an adorable little babe who looks nothing like the pictures that her mommy takes (big blurry baby head, anyone?)  Since I moved to Las Vegas, I don’t get to spend nearly as much time with them as I’d like to, and I really miss them a lot, but even with the infrequent visits, I try to be the best Aunty I can be from 2700 miles away.

Accounting.  I’m working in the accounting department of Big Company, and I’m liking it quite a bit.  It’s a change from other jobs I’ve had in that it’s a big company and I live in a cube.  But the people are great, and my boss is very supportive, so I’ve decided to go back to school to study accounting.   As a compulsive checkbook-reconciler, I think it’s something I’ve got a bit of a knack for, so I’m really looking forward to it.  I was going to get a jump start and take a class over the summer, but with the wedding and house, I think the summer will be crazy enough without trying to cram a 6 week class into the mix, so I’ll be looking to start classes in the fall.

There’s a bit about me, the first in the Encyclopedia of Me series.  Look for the next installment coming soon!