​Several weeks ago, I had an interesting dream. I was visiting with family members. There weren't any COVID-19 components, so everyone was having fun together without any masks or need for distancing. One of my family members convinced me to walk with her to the Warwick Mall. We then went on a great walk together; we even carried some weights, in addition to our purses. The mall is only a little over four miles from my house, and I've sometimes walked over six miles in one day. I also usually like to exercise. I'm guessing I was trying to tell myself to exercise more than what I was doing. I might also have been telling myself that I wanted to visit more with family members during these tough times of social distancing. 

A few nights ago, I had a dream about trying to find my bookmarks in my purse. Today's blog posting has a picture of the front and back of one of my bookmarks. I actually designed these bookmarks by myself. I give these bookmarks out for free at my author events. I also always have a few of these bookmarks in my purse. They're sort of like business cards.

During my dream, I spent a lot of time looking in my purse for these bookmarks, but I couldn't find a single one. I also found all kinds of other new things that I usually never have in my purse. One new thing was an empty potato chip bag. I actually very rarely eat regular potato chips, but instead, I normally eat nut-thins or cracker-thins. I also found some cat toys that I have never put in my purse, but I could not find the laser pointer that I always have there. Also missing from my purse were cosmetic items (lipstick, comb, mirror, . . ).

In this dream, a few of the normal items actually were in my purse: my billfold, money, credit cards, and car keys.

During this dream, I was probably telling myself about some new parts of my life during this COVID-19 pandemic. For example,  when I'm wearing a mask, I do not also wear make-up. Many of my usual author events have been cancelled, so I'm not giving out too many free bookmarks. Some of these events are still running, but in different ways (http://www.drkarenpetit.com/events.html). I also eat differently. I spend more time with my cats and play with them and their toys more. Thankfully, I still have enough money to pay my most essential bills.

I'm thinking of writing a poem about the contents of this dream.  Content from my dreams is often added into my poetry and novels, in addition to the content of this blog.

Because I encounter traffic on the roads a lot in my reality, I often have dreams about traffic and other driving problems. A few days ago, I had a dream about going to New York City. I was going to take a plane and then changed my mind because I wanted to drive my car around New York City. I then drove my car to New York City and was so happy when I encountered very little traffic there. Possibly the reason for so little traffic was the timing: about two o'clock in the morning. In my dream, all of the stores were actually open then, and the sun was shining. The roads were also all painted like the example in this blog's picture. Rather than a nightmare of traffic, I had a very positive dream about having fun on a trip.

​In my reality at the grocery store last week, I checked the eggs that I was buying to make certain all of them were okay. They were. I then went to one of the checkout registers. The store's cashier also checked out the eggs to make certain they were all okay. They were still all perfect.

​In a dream that same night, I was at the same grocery store again. I was trying to buy eggs. Each time when I opened up the top of an egg carton, I immediately saw that all of the eggs were cracked. I then gave up and decided not to buy any eggs.

I think I was trying to tell myself that I didn't have to be perfect and that life often includes some broken parts.

Whenever I have an interesting dream, wake up, and think I might want to use the content in my writing, I quickly write down whatever I can remember. The picture here shows an example of how I scribble on paper what happened, so I'll have the content. While I don't always use the content directly, sometimes what I might be trying to say to myself will give me ideas for my writing. For example, in the dream content referenced in this picture, I'm shopping with my kids, and we see some electronic toys, which actually weren't being made when my kids were kids. This dream just happened a few weeks ago, and the toys in my dream were not available for purchase over forty years ago. Perhaps the content about the store person telling us we couldn't buy those toys happened because the time frame was incorrect, or possibly I was trying to tell myself that I'm still young--or maybe that I'm getting old.