What the brain gets up to when no one's looking

Um, no.  The brain doesn't get up to violets.  As usual the photo is pointless, and since the Early Blue Violets are the most colourful things in my father's yard at the moment I thought I'd share some with you.  I took a lot of pointless photos yesterday, actually, but since it's early days yet most of them are of leaf buds on trees.  I hope everyone likes leaf buds on trees, because you might be seeing a fair amount of them in the near future.

So.  Topic.  I had a weird, weird night last night.  Lots of dreams -- or at least lots of remembered dreams, which isn't all that normal for me.  Nothing too disturbing, thank goodness, and nothing that I think needs much in the way of examining.  Although I might wonder why I was having Christmas dinner with one of my former supervisors, really.  In real life?  It'd never, never happen.  Or at least not in such a civilised manner.

Remembering dreams at all is still a strange thing for me.  I've mentioned this before, but for a very long time I didn't remember any dreams.  Not even when I became briefly interested in dream analysis (very briefly.  Almost non-existently briefly) and tried some of the techniques suggested to help you retain your dreams.  My stubborn brain just refused to have anything to do with it.

And why?  I'm not sure, obviously, but I've speculated in the past that maybe it was because I had an awful time with dreams for a period when I was a kid.  I'd have terrible, terrible dreams, and they'd be set off by just about anything.  In one memorable case a silly and completely not memorable Disney movie turned into a slasher flick in my eight-year-old mind.  Seriously.  Blood and gore and the whole works.  With a cat.  Hey, I've never claimed to be normal.  Anyway, my theory is that after a while of terrifying myself in my sleep my brain decided that if I insisted on playing that stupid game then it damned well wasn't going to let me remember any of it.

And that's exactly what happened.  As far as I was concerned, I didn't have any dreams.  I mean, I know I did, but for all I knew about them they may as well have not existed.  And this went on for yeeears.  Long enough that it really feels odd to wake up from a dream now and remember anything about it.

Which brings up the question of why I can remember the occasional dream these days, I guess.  I'd like to think that it means that my brain has started trusting me again, but that's too schizophrenic a thought even for Yours Neurotically.

Maybe I've just found easier ways to terrorise myself.

Or maybe I've stopped?

I dunno.  And I'm not likely to.  I suppose all I can say to wrap this up is pass the sweet potato casserole, please.  And do try to keep that bloody cat out of the way...