Week 19: The wild world of pregnancy dreams

Prior to my baby-baking days, I would have odd dreams on occasion. I might even remember one when I woke up, but as unlikely as many of them were to happen in real life (like a break-in at our home or being back in college and forgetting about a major exam), they were all pretty firmly rooted in reality. They feasibly could have happened at some point.
My pregnancy dreams, on the other hand, don’t care much about creating a realistic experience … and my brain goes right along believing these vivid imaginary tales regardless of how absurd they are. Plus, now that I’m waking more, to find a comfortable position or trek to the bathroom yet again, I remember more of them—sometimes three or four from a single night!
In one I was swimming—or attempting to—in an Olympic-size pool that was covered with a large piece of cling wrap. Lest you think this was a nightmare and I was trapped underneath, I’ll go ahead and inform you that, no, I was trying to swim on top of the cling wrap. And it was just as awkward looking as it sounds. To make matters stranger, it seemed like I was in some sort of race with other “swimmers” in the lanes next to me. (The air quotes felt necessary considering we weren’t actually in the water.) … I did win, so there’s that.
In other dreams I’ve gone shopping at a clandestine discount bakery with my bosses (there was a secret password to get in the door … because cupcakes are a top priority in my world) and had a psychologist help me recall a long-forgotten memory of witnessing a bank robbery as a child. So far, most of my dreams don’t actually involve being pregnant or having a baby at all. They’re just weird. The only one that did seemed like a normal day, running errands and grabbing a bite to eat with my husband, except for the fact that we kept forgetting our newborn EVERYWHERE we went. Any time we left a place, we’d have to turn around and go back to get the baby. I felt like a truly awesome mom the next morning. Ha!
I don’t know why these crazy dreams happen. I suspect it has something to do with hormones, as pregnancy weirdness usually does. But perhaps, in some cases, I’m clearing my head of stress and anxiety. Just the other night I woke myself up because I was having an argument with someone, and I actually yelled out a sentence in the dark of my bedroom. (That was especially unusual for me because I am probably the least confrontational person you will ever meet.) And yet, as startling as it was, it felt a little cathartic.