So I have a very weird subconscious. You?

I'm no oneirologist<-----person studying the science of dreams but from what I have read most of us have 4 or more dreams a night and most of us don't remember most of the dreams that we have. Some say Dreams are physiological, in that it's part of the housekeeping process for our brains. No one really know - my take is that our conscious sometimes picks up on some non related images which is being processed behind the scenes and parts of our psychology which prevents us going nuts confabulates visual and sensory meaning to link them all together. The real question is why our conscious gets involved at all.

I'm convinced that for me, most of the dreams which I remember are NREM sleep dreams. I don't remember ever having anything visually vivid as some people describe. Normally my dreams involve places, memories, people and places mixed in from past and present/blended memories and an emotion. I only have fleeting recollection of them and they typically fade away soon after I awake. I've tried holding on to the memory of some pretty cool dreams which aroused very positive emotional states of happiness, peace, comfort, invincibility.

The most common thing that I have that I recollect are bouts of sleep paralysis and/or i have bouts of dreaming that i'm having sleep paralysis which may as well be the same thing psychologically, even if different physiologically.

Horrible sensation of being aware that i'm asleep and wanting to move, roll over or whatever but can't because the bits of the brain which control my body are still asleep. It's literally like i'm sending the signal to move but nothing happens and it usually is followed by thoughts of frustration and annoyance as i desperately try and will my body to move, it only lasts a few minutes but believe me, it's a really uncomfortable sensation.

As a kid, I got crook a bit, had serious bronchitis for weeks at a time - was on this medicine which produced some full on nightmarish hallucinations I think or it may have just been because i was really unwell. Brondecon was the name of the medicine - wild cherry flavour. I hate the smell of that stuff, just looked it up and it's still around with a big warning label - not for kids, contains ethanol.

Two other times, i remember experiencing the following

1. At home in bed, woke up, looked at my hand and well it had a massive hole in it and green slime was pouring out, i started freaking out. Body was well awake so was the mind - well not the sane part. No - there was no hole or slime and that probably wouldn't really freak me out today.

2. Mum and Dad had been at a friends place, us kids had been asleep for a few hours and were a bit groggy. I think was assisting with getting my seatbelt on, i was about 8 or 9, half awake anyway, he strapped me in the back seat, something must have pinched me in the process, I started freaking out convinced I was being bitten by millions of redback spiders - took about 10 minutes to calm me down. This was in suburbia at about 2am in the morning. Sorry Neighbours.

Oh, then there was this one time which I don't remember(completely asleep or rather, my conscious self was) it involved the same people as number 2. I was about 14 had been asleep in my own bed, mum and dad were entertaining at our place. I wandered into the lounge room, where they were chatting away, went over to the corner of the room, pulled out my junk and pissed right there in front of everyone, did the shake thing, retracted the junk and then proceeded to make my way back to bed, hopefully stopping by the bathroom to wash my hands first. I was completely oblivious to this happening. When my mother told me that the next morning as i was prepping for school, naturally, i didn't believe her. She said, she had to restrain Dad who was about to shock me awake with a good backhand and pointed out the still damp area of the plush carpet she'd cleaned up following. She's a good mum. As far as i know i've never ever done anything slightly similar to that prior or after but it's a bit disconcerting to realise that I don't have the capacity to KNOW.

The only other semi nightmarish dream i've had that I remember was about 7 years ago it involved a sexual encounter with a female work associate and it reoccurred several times in the space of a couple of months. The nature of the dream didn't so much bother me but what did bother me was the emotion of actually enjoying it and lusting for more which followed and it really rattled me. I had no conscious thought of having a relationship with another woman, being more than satisfied with the amazing relationship which I have with my wife. That subconsious thing though had other ideas and kept taunting me with this erotic imagery which were enjoyable and pleasing to me in the most base of ways.

I'm meticulously honest, especially with my Wife and I take my concerns to her, she takes them to me. It's a big part of our relationship. One of her concerns over the years has been other women at work stealing me away, not in a paranoid sort of way, just minor worries here and there because she's seen people interested and the occassional mention of me being all chatty around other women sometimes and reading stuff into that. I assure her, there's nothing in that.
So here's me having this dream about doing something which my wife is concerned might actually happen, it bothers me because i'm very faithful and feel like i'm being unfaithful by enjoying these dreams and it bothers me because, the one person i talk to about stuff that bothers me is my wife and I have no idea how to break this information to her. So I held off for a bit, queried some fellas at work who said DO NOT tell your wife under any circumstance.

In the end, I ignored their advice and told my wife anyway because I need to know that she knows, i'm honest with her about everything and that I trust her enough to be able to tell her stuff, even if it's really difficult. She didn't take it well and was a bit stand offish for a couple of days but I felt a lot better after telling her and I stopped having those bloody erotic dreams.

Anyway, i've probably over shared again...i'll creep back into my hidey hole.