I’m a light sleeper. Always have been and I guess I always will be. I’m talking so light that a fly could wake me up. From another room.
Because of this my brain doesn’t go into deep REM sleep, you know the kind that produces dreams.
What this means is that I don’t dream, or at least I don’t remember my dreams very often. However when I do wake up remembering them, they’re usually doozies.
One of my alltime weirdest dreams that I still remember vividly, actually happened over 25 years ago and yet I still remember it as if it was last night.
It jumps out of my memory bank from time to time and I can’t help but play it over in my head trying to figure out what the hell it meant.
Now I assure you that no drugs or alcohol were involved and I have no idea what my brain was trying to process that night, but I’d sure love to know:
It’s a typical Wednesday evening and I have my big blue Wilson tennis bag slung over my shoulder. I’m standing on a street corner waiting for the city bus to take me the 20 or so blocks to my weekly Wednesday night indoor tennis league.
The bus comes, the door opens and I get on. I go to pay my fare but the driver puts his hand over the ticket slot. He shakes his head, smiles, and in a tone that could best be described as someone who is starstruck from a surprise encounter with a celebrity he says to me, “You don’t think I’m going to let you pay do you?”
“Okay thanks” I say, and then I head to the back of the bus.
I settle into the long seat down the back half of the bus and stand my bag up on the floor between my knees. I remember proudly thinking that I wasn’t one of those a$$holes who tosses their bags all over the seats preventing other passengers from sitting down.
It doesn’t matter that the back half of the bus is almost empty, I’m proud of mysef all the same.
I look up and notice an athletic looking blonde girl sitting in the seat directly across from me. I notice that unlike me, her tennis bag is taking up at least two places on the seat beside her.
I shake my head disaprovingly and then I notice who this girl is. Dammit! I’m on an east-end Montréal city bus, sitting directly across from German tennis star Steffi Graf.
She looks me in the eyes and gives me a huge beaming smile, like she just bumped into a long lost friend.
Steffi tells me she was hoping to bump into me this evening and that she and her manager have been trying to track me down for some time.
She explains that they’ve come to the realization that if she’s ever going to be able to consistently beat Chrissy and Martina she needs to dramatically improve her serve, and she heard that I’m just the guy who could help her with that.
Taken aback and somewhat flattered I tell her that yes I have a good serve, but since I have no experience as a coach I’d have no idea where to begin deconstructing and rebuilding hers, which by the way I thought was a perfectly good weapon already.
Then I give my opinion, telling her that whenever she gets into tight match situations she has a tendency to ease up on the backhand side and play safe slice shots instead of hitting hard agressive topspin.
I tell her, “You really need to work on your backhand, not your serve.”
She shakes her head in disagreement and the conversation continues.
A few minutes later I look out the window and realize that mine is the next stop, so I pull the cord, ringing the bell to let the driver know I need to get off. I shake her hand and tell her we’ll have to discuss it another time, and I step off the bus.
The real kicker is that after getting off the bus it dawns on me that during the entire conversation I just had, we both spoke in German.
Standing there on the sidewalk I remember saying to myself, in my dream, “I must be dreaming because I don’t speak German!”
Not: “Dude you just met Steffi Graf on Montréal public transit” or “Why the hell does a top 5 ranked tennis player want to hire you to coach her?” Or even, “You just blew-off one of the greatest female tennis players of all time.”
Just, “I don’t speak German”, and then I woke up.
Now I don’t recall that Steffi and I ever spoke again in another dream, but in the real world she went on to be ranked number 1 for a good long while, beating both Chrissy and Martina numerous times, and winning countless grand slam tournaments all without my help.
To this day I can’t help but wonder how much better she could have been had I stayed on the bus that evening and agreed to help her 🙂
Next time remind me to tell you about that time I was chased through the back alleys of Tokyo by a gang of Yakuza, on a dark and rainy night, only to watch them turn into black and white cartoon characters after they’d cornered me.
What about you? What was your weirdest, no this can’t be happening – I must be dreaming, dream?
My husband would love to have that dream – he’s a huge fan of Steffi’s. My weirdest dreams are when I know I’m dreaming but I can’t wait up. They call the syndrome “sleep paralysis” or “the Night Hag.”
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I’ve never heard of that, sounds scary.
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If I can even recall a dream (or even yesterday) I’ll get back to you. Meanwhile, WEIRD! And did you speak Japanese to the Yakusa gang? 😁
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No I remember them shouting a lot and me not understanding a word of it. Strange eh?
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Very! I don’t remember dreams much but when I do they are nothing like yours! Wow!
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Wunderbar .
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Absolutely Dan – Danke 😉
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Haven’t they done studies on people who go under hypnosis and find that they can speak different languages, play instruments, etc, all while unconcious? Our brains are amazing things.
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Amazing is definitely the word, especially considering they say that we only use about 10% of it.
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What a thought-provoking dream, Norm. And to think you remember so much detail from all those years ago. To me there are several messages in your subconscious that caused you to elicit this dream. Cher xo
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No doubt Cher, maybe I was supposed to be an elite tennis coach, or a generous bus driver – who knows?
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I have a couple of theories, Norm if you don’t mind me noting!
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Sure Cher, send them to me by email
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Shall do; thanks, Norm! Cher 🙂
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Oh I have crazy, vivid, surreal dreams all the time. Most of them are scary, and not nearly enough of them are entertaining in a speaking-German-with-Steffi-Graf kinda way. I’m a light sleeper, too.
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It’s rare that I’ll have a scary one, most of mine are just surreal things like this.
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I love intricate dreams with impossible elements. I think it shows us the potential of reality. Great dream Norm.
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Very true. All of that untapped potential; we just have to figure out how to access it.
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That was a great story!! Apparently you do speak German … you participated and understood the conversation 😉
I’ve had entire dreams in French and when I woke up in the morning I realized I didn’t have a clue what was said.
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Who knows, one day they may figure out how that part of the brain works and lord help us when that happens 😉
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That was crazy weird! I have weird, vivid dreams all the time but the one that comes to mind this morning was the dream inside a dream. I was having a sex dream about a guy I know but would never ever have fantasizes about in waking life. I woke from the dream and said “man I’m gonna have to tell Todd about this!” And went off in search for him, and the streak continued from there. When I actually woke up I was all whoah did I just have a dream in my dream? So weird!
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I’ve heard about those dreams within a dream but I’ve never experienced it. That’s getting into multiple layers worth of weird.
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I did actually text the guy when I woke up, he cracked up because I googled that when you dream within a dream it is because your subconscious is trying to get you to deal with something it thinks will scare you. That is the only one I’ve ever had but even the dream within the dream was vivid.
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Wow, I have to say, I am very similar, in the sense that I have incredivly sensitive hearing and usually don’t dream but the few I remember are incredibly vivid. Thank you for sharing 🙂
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Thanks for reading 🙂
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I don’t know if this was the weirdest, but in the early/mid 1980s I was shot by the Pointer Sisters. I was a detective following these three shadowy figures. They turned around, were the Pointer Sisters, pulled out a shotgun and gunned me down. I think that’s one of the few times a celebrity made a cameo in one of my dreams.
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That’s a good one. I hear those girls were not afraid to mix it up when they had to 😉
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I just remembered this – that was also the only time I can remember having a dream in a dream – i woke up from the Pointer Sisters, went and wash all of the blood off, etc. Then stopped and wondered why I was covered in blood if it was a dream. Then my alarm went off.
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Funny. Maybe you spoke German in another lifetime.
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That’s a good point – I hadn’t thought of that.
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I too am a light sleeper. Most nights I feel as if I haven’t really slept at all,however I’m not tired. I also don’t dream or I don’t remember dreams.
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I’m usually well-rested come morning too, it just doesn’t feel like it during the night.
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I ask myself..’Am I asleep yet?’
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Weird enough, I love it, dreaming is fascinating!
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Just amazing what our brains do to us without our input, eh?
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Absolutely fascinating!
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