The Labyrinth

  I believe -  no, I know - that our dreams carry important messages for us - messages from our unheard selves, to ourselves. Most often, mine are not clear dictates, magical incantations, or compelling omens, but rather a mixed-up bag of suppressed feeling, hope, and worry, dressed and tossed with the detritus of the day’s matter. My dreams, like my waking imagination, are vivid, rich, abundant, and complicated.  Sometimes I feel plagued or perplexed by dreams. This was so in my first year of graduate school, where I was working through so many things. I kept a dream journal for a few months, but ultimately had to stop because the more I wrote, the more I remembered, and I didn’t have time for that much writing!  Mostly, I am grateful for my dreams, though, and can’t imagine living without them. They’re like a foreign language I only speak in my sleep: I wake up with odd phrases on my lips that I have to guess at translating.  While I dream a lot, often with overtones of stress or wo