I had a colorful dream last night

Before I get in to the dream part of this article, I want to share some background information.

Ever since I had my children, I have become a very light sleeper. It's rare for me to sleep through an entire night. I usually wake up at least once a night. During an overnight stay in a hospital for asthma recently, I learned I possibly have sleep apnea which I've never been formally diagnosed with.

Whenever I eat chocolate before bed, I usually have some sort of weird dreams.

Yesterday was an unusual day, without chocolate. Perhaps this accounts for part of the craziness in the dream.

Here is a synopsis of my day yesterday leading up to this dream:

• I had a lot of errands to run in the morning.
• I went to three different stores for groceries.
• After a quick trip to the mall, I ate leftover fish and chips for lunch at home.
• At 3:00 p.m. my husband and I went to a friend's house to see if he could help us with a car issue.
• We sat outside in the hot sun from 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. talking to our friends.
• During the time we were visiting with our friends, we also met three people who came to see them.
• The three people that came to see them all talked to us about different things.
• One person talked to us about his new hunting equipment. (I am not in to hunting so the terminology of which he spoke didn't really mean much to me.)
• The second person talked about dogs.
• The third person talked to us about home ownership and his troubles with the garbage man, in addition to stories about his rescue dogs.
• Together, we all were talking about the dad dog that was playing with his three puppies at the neighbor's house. I was intrigued by what an awesome father this dog was to those puppies. I have only ever seen a mother dog with her pups.

Could any one of those things be the cause of my weird dream?

Or, maybe it was what we did when we left our friend's house because we were tired, thirsty and hungry.

After all, we sat outside in the hot sun for hours without anything to drink, talking the whole time, and I did become parched.

We drove to a 24-hour restaurant in town that entices residents with hundreds of food choices.

After 10 minutes of reading the menu, I ordered a raspberry ice tea, turkey club sandwich on wheat with bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and a side of fries.

The turkey was real turkey meat, not deli slices.

It was on the dry side so I did something I normally wouldn't do. I added extra salt to each quarter of the club sandwich in order to offset the dryness of the meat.

We finally got home about 10:00 p.m. It was late and I was tired. I went to bed.

I can't recall anything out of the ordinary. I didn't watch tv. I just simply fell asleep.

Around 5:30 a.m., today, one of my cats made a mad dash across my room, jumped on me, sprang across the bed on to the desk, and up the window knocking a crystal lamp to the floor. After hearing the loud crash and commotion, I got up and did a couple of things around the house. I realized I was still tired. I went back to bed.

This is when I must have had the dream. I didn't wake up until 9:00 a.m. when my husband brewed a fresh pot of coffee.

This is what I dreamt (everything was different in my dream than it is in real life):

I woke up in a two-piece silky pajama set resembling a bathing suit. I was laying in bed in a soft, fluffy bed of white sheets, blankets, pillows, like I was sleeping on a cloud.

My husband was next to me sleeping. I heard my son, much younger, marching up the staircase. He knocked on the door and came in to say good morning.

My husband and I said good morning to him at the same time. After briefly chatting, he went out of the room.

My husband got up to make breakfast. (This part isn't unusual as he often makes breakfast on the weekends.)

I got up and looked out the all-glass wall overlooking acres of green grass, large rocks, and a beautiful sunny day.

The room was small. Large enough for a bed, nightstand, and one small bathroom which was built in the shape of a square.

I walked out of the room. I noticed all of the glass windows everywhere, and white trim. All the wood in the house was painted white except for one door which I'll describe later.

I walked in to the kitchen. I don't recall the flooring. But what I do recall are the glass windows. Again, the whole wall was glass. I could see out all over acres and acres of beautiful perfect green grass like in a fresh meadow.

As I leaned against the white counter, I drank coffee from a white mug. The coffee was light brown.

I saw a large black dog walk by. (I had a dog just like this in real life.) When I saw the dog, in my dream, I said to my husband, "hey there is our dog". (Like in my dream I knew I had the dog in real life at one time.) My husband tried to tell me it couldn't be our dog because he had passed away years ago.

Opening the kitchen door, I saw the white trim on the little farm-style window near the front door, and I heard commotion out front. Stepping on to the front porch, painted barn red, I saw the blue dog. It was a huge dog with a lot of hair colored bright baby blue. Brighter than the sky above. I thought it was some sort of joke. There were people standing down below in a huge stretch of green grass. I called to them to get out of my yard and take their dogs with them, as I had dogs of my own in my house and didn't want any problems. There was also a pink poodle as bright pink as bubblegum.

The people shouted back that they weren't going to leave.

I walked back in to the kitchen to call for help, but walking back through the door I noticed everything was different.

There was a party of some sort going on. There were trays of food on the counter. There were people carrying trays of food and offering guests squares of yellow cheese and crackers. There were guests who I had never met.

There were even three robed priests, in maroon colored robes.

I ran up to the first person I met. I didn't know him. He was tall with dark hair. He was using an old gray cordless phone with glow-in-the dark greenish tinted buttons from the 1980s. I asked him if I could borrow his phone as I couldn't find mine.

As if he didn't hear me, he set the phone face down on the counter. I picked it up. I tried to push the buttons to dial for help. 9-0-1. 9-1-2. I couldn't dial what I needed to in order to reach the police. Frantically, calling out to anyone who would help me, I finally gave up and went searching for my husband.

I found him out in the back yard. There was a huge in-ground pool and he was resting against the side, drinking a cold beverage, talking to a bunch of other people in the pool. Other people were standing around on the cement gray patio.

The yard was extended well past where I could see. It stretched for miles. Purely green grass. Greener than I've ever seen before. It was lush green. I just wanted to run through it with bare feet.

It was then I remembered my phone might be in the kitchen pantry. So I headed back through the house, and saw the pantry door. It was the only wood in the house that was raw brown. It had never been painted. I opened the door, but the pantry had been transformed in to a full bar complete with bartender. Three ladies were sitting on the opposite side of the bar facing me as I walked in.

They were each in cocktail party dresses, in red, blue and emerald green. All of them had dark brown, wavy hair. Each of them had a tri-fold panel in front of them. Each panel was sitting on the bar displaying my valuables. One panel had jewelry. In front of that was a certificate about the value of the jewelry. The second panel had pictures, with a certificate listing all of the pictures. The third panel contained important paperwork with another certificate.

Feeling threatened, I told them I was going to call the police. They had stolen my valuables and personal belongings. They insisted they had not and it was for insurance purposes.

(In real life I have nothing of the sort, so it was even more interesting to see colorful jewelry on display claiming to be my valuables.)

I left the pantry/bar room and quickly looked to see if I could lock them in until the police arrived. There was a brand-new latch on the bottom of the door. It was silver. On the left side of the door molding, there was a silver hinge with a round flat shape. A hole was cut in the middle. On the right side, there was a slide bar. I folded the left side down and slipped the bar through it to prevent these ladies from coming out of the room. They shook the door softly calling out to me to let them go.

I turned around and ran outside to the back yard by the swimming area. The police were there by now. I couldn't get to them. They were in navy blue uniforms with silver badges. They were consoling my guests and even hugging some of the women.

Having no idea what was going on, I decided to take matters in to my own hands.

I ran to find my son. I called out to him. There were a lot of children there running around in colorful dresses. I eventually saw my son. He was dressed in a little cornflower blue suit with a striped navy blue and gold tie. He ran past me as if he didn't know me.

I chased him as far in to the woods as I could run. All of the children were out of sight now.

When I turned around, I was surprised to see the three priests. They summoned me to follow them. The led me to a big white house made from marble with two pillars in the front. It was a mortuary. They showed me that I was in it.

It wasn't until I woke up from the dream though, that I realized the three ladies in the bar were the insurance adjustors for my estate. The drama unfolding at my house was my funeral.

When I told my husband about the dream, he said that was nonsense because he obviously wouldn't be partying in a swimming pool if I had really passed away!

Only in my dreams.

Honestly, I'm not one to interpret my crazy dreams because I think dreams are a way of our complex minds flushing out past stresses and future thoughts.

This dream was so colorful and intriguing, I wanted to know what it could possibly mean.

I went searching on the internet and found a few interpretation guides about dreaming in color. And then I put all of the colors together like a puzzle until it made sense.

It makes a lot of sense now that I look back.

The three robed priests are probably the three new friends I talked with yesterday.

The dogs were probably the memories of the puppies I watched run through the grassy hills of the neighboring yard from where I sat talking to friends yesterday.

As far as all the glass windows and valuables in my dream, those are not anything I own in real life.

If yellow and black mean sickness and death, I interpret those to reflect the deep thoughts I've had about an ill family member lately that means so much to me in real life.

When my grandmother passed away in 2007, I was not ready for her to go. I loved her so much and it came as a great devastation to me when she was no longer on this earth.

As the time has come for another beloved family member to pass away, I have grown in my faith and get through these difficult times with different meaning. While I was a faith-believing person at the time my grandmother passed away, I have grown more in my life and have been through many trials myself. All of this has made me stronger in my faith.

I think this colorful dream was regurgitating my beliefs and how I am handling the passing of a beloved person in my life.

Who knows! It was one of the craziest dreams I've ever experienced, and I'm surprised I remembered every detail.

Have you ever had such a crazy dream? I'd like to hear about yours.