Do you remember your dreams? Yes! But if I don’t think about them when I wake up, then I’ll forget.
What's the best dream you've ever had? I don’t know. The best dream I can think of that I had in recent years is where I was at my late grandparents’ house. Memee died when I was 19 and PaDad died when I was 9. Memee was alive in the dream, but my mom and everyone else thought she was dead. PaDad was there too, and even though he was a ghost, I could talk to him. That felt great!
What's the worst nightmare you've ever had? I’ll have to pick the one where I woke up on the floor on the opposite side of the bed from where I went to sleep and I was unable to move in the tangled sheets. My mom and aunt told me later that morning that I had been screaming. This happened on vacation in Colorado during the sixth month of my first pregnancy.
In the dream I was climbing a mountain with some other people. It was steep and we had to lean over, using our hand on the ground for balance. I was in the lead when I noticed a large hole. I looked in and quickly had to duck as a giant bird reached out and tried to snap my head off. That’s when I woke up.
What's the absolute WEIRDEST dream you've ever had? They’re all pretty weird. When I was little, maybe 7 or 8, I dreamed that my cousin Amy and I were being chased by a werewolf in my late grandparents’ house. Just before he caught me by the drinking fountain on the enclosed back porch, I turned, held out my hand and said, "Hi, I’m Delilah. Let’s be friends." Then we were friends.
Last night I dreamed I was in a car with people from high school, and we were in high school. I was telling them all of the boys I knew were unsuitable for me. I said I wished I wasn’t so worried about meeting the "one" and could relax in my in-between years. The whole time I knew that I was really 33 and married with two kids. Next, the car was on a roller coaster track, and I really wished I had a seatbelt. I looked at the floor, and it wasn’t so bad. We stayed on the tracks somehow! Then I was in an arcade with the girl (she’s five). My friends couldn’t believe she was mine because I was too young to have a five year old. I tried to tell them I was really 33, but they didn’t get it. As you can see, the dream folded into new scenarios. Most of my dreams tend to do that, and I usually don’t remember much of this kind. In the last scenario I was practicing virtual speed carts. They were long, thin, fast, and had arms to grab, pick up, and/or move things. The boss wouldn’t let me in a real one, but after dark, this boy I knew in high school, Ben, came back and told me he noticed how I always snuck off to practice. He wanted me to be his new Arm Runner. That’s the person that sits in the second seat and manipulates the arm while the first person drives. When I woke up it occurred to me that the arm could be replaced with guns, and then I suddenly knew why weapons are called arms and how a gun can be a sidearm (they are an extension of the arm).
Can you control your dreams? Sometimes I influence dreams, but I never have complete control. In one dream from the high school years, I was being chased around my late grandparents’ house by monsters. They had a fence built around the entire property with a large yard in the old days before cities banned fences in front yards. In my dream, the fence was a magical barrier. I just couldn’t get away from the monsters! I decided the only way out was to let myself die by the giant spider. It would wrap me up in web and spit me over the fence. I did, and it did. At that point, without waking up, I rolled into the next dream.
Do you have any recurring dreams? I used to dream about being chased all of the time from a young age until about 23 or 24. I don’t have recurring dreams so much anymore, but I do have recurring players. I often dream about my mom and dad, my late grandmother, Memee, and my sister/daughter and my brother/son. The interesting thing about the sibling/children thing is that I’m the oldest followed by me brother then sister, so my son and daughter fit into that mold. A dream can start with my sister and brother and later they will actually be my kids!
Have you ever had a flying dream? Yes, but it was an effort to get off the ground, and I never knew when I would lose control.
How about one of those dreams where you go to school/work and realize that you're naked? Nope. But I often go to high school and can’t remember my locker combination! Then after school, I don’t know what bus to ride home because my mom moved. This is another place where I dream of the past with real changes from the present.
Have you ever had a dream that featured characters from a book, movie, or television show? No. I usually have random people that I seem to know in the dream, but don’t know in real life.
Have you ever had a dream where your teeth fall out? Yes! More than once.
Have you ever dreamed something that later came true? No.
Bonus question for writers: Have your characters ever shown up in your dreams? Sadly, no.
Delilah Rehm
