Elevator dreams

For a while this summer, I was having bizarre, vivid dreams that I woke up remembering. Since starting grad school, I have been remembering fewer dreams. I think my brain is so busy all day, I don't have any leftover space to remember my dreams. But last night I had a strange one. I remember just one part of it: the elevator.

I was about to get on an elevator when I realized it was going down instead of up. I was on a lower floor of a multi-level building. There were a few people already in the elevator, going down. I figured it would take just a minute to go down and then up, but something unexpected happened. As the elevator descended, it became smaller and the ceiling came down closer to our heads. I think I may have been trying not to float up toward the ceiling, as if there was no gravity or the elevator was moving very fast. Picture the scene from Star Wars when they are trying not to get crushed by the garbage compactor – that's how I felt, but I didn't have Han or a Wookie or a steel post to protect me (or cinnamon buns for hair).

Then, just as the elevator was about to become impossibly small, we reached the bottom and started to ascend again. By the time we reached the top floor, where I wanted to be, the ceiling was far away and the elevator had expanded again. I could breathe and everything was fine.

Now, you should know, I don't like elevators. They make me a little queasy and a little dizzy. I can barely handle riding the elevator at work when I bring a book cart up to the second floor. I hold my breath and let it out rapidly when it jerks to a stop. Also, I may be slightly claustrophobic.

So my interpretation is thus, and fairly basic: I am feeling a lot of pressure and not much room to breathe, but once I get to the bottom, it will all be better from there. Where I'm going, there's lots of room to breathe.

My thought, several times a day, is "I just need a break." I have been going nonstop since mid-August, with school and work and, in between, doing things like cooking and laundry, dealing with back pain for a while, and trying to stay healthy. So I think the elevator is pretty small right now. But I'm more than halfway through the semester, and I have December free from classes. Work alone will seem like a breeze. And I'll try not to think about the remaining five semesters.

Comments

[Heba S]

i had similar dreams, only my elevator was going up instead of down. The thing that bothers me that i used to have this dream reaccuring several times.
Well just night i had this dream that i was in an elevator that kept doing up and never reaching my floor, instead somehow passing it and reaching ground floor again!
Bets of luck :)