Last night I had a dream that was so disturbing that after I had it, I went back to sleep and dreamed about talking it over with others to find out what it meant. Very meta.
The dream came sometime after Simon’s 4:30 a.m. feeding. (I think he’s having a small growth spurt and so is feeding often these days.) Matt and I lived in our current house, only it was located back in our old San Francisco neighborhood. We were getting ready to move and were in the house packing up our last things. It was to be our final night sleeping in the house.
I put Simon alone in the middle of a double bed in our guest bedroom. Then I shut the door behind me and went on to finishing packing. I was clearly trying to get Simon out of the way–great parenting! After a few hours, I heard crying and went to check on him.
And there they were. About six or seven little Simons sitting up on the bed. Two had different hair than Simon does, but about five babies were identical to him in every way. Dream Jessica had no idea if they were clones or hallucinations. But whatever they were, they all seemed equally real, and they scared the bejeezus out of me. Worst of all, I had no idea which baby was my actual son.
Finally, one of the Simons cried louder than the others and tried to crawl over the heap of other babies to get to me. I decided he must be the real one, picked him up, and left the room. A while later, I returned to see if the other Simons were still around and was relieved to discover they had vanished. Relieved not only because the extra babies disturbed me, but also because their disappearance confirmed that I was holding the right one.
Several hours later, I had my second dream. In this dream I had friends over for brunch and asked them to interpret the dream for me. And wouldn’t you know it, they started to answer me just as I woke up.
All very strange and unsettling. By Simon’s 10:30 feeding I could make a joke out of it. He started to cry and I told him if he didn’t perk up I’d trade him in for one of the extra Simons in the room across the hall!