Tuesday Morning Edition

I don't know what the heck happened last night, but I had four (count them) four horrible dreams last night. And I slept terribly because of it. Here's a summary:

In the first I was in the car with my family when we saw two huge tornadoes coming our way. I have similar dreams to this one every few years or so. We made it to safety, but it was a panicked few moments while we tried to make it back to our hotel. In the second dream I was with a few strangers, and a convict (orange jumper and all) was chasing us through a building. We gathered in a room and of course, he finds the room and starts banging on the door while we scream and try to escape. At the end of the dream we get away and he gets caught, but then people start getting killed - kind of like Final Destination where destiny finds a way to complete itself. After this dream I got up and walked around. I was freaked and didn't want to fall asleep and continue the same dream, so I had to break it by doing other things. By the time I did fall back asleep, I had my third dream which involved Elliott. He got out of the house (my parents', I think), jumped a few stories down from a deck to the ground (which scared me), then caught a fish from a stream and the fish tried to bite off his face. Gross, right? Lastly, I dreamt that I was a teenager again, and a neighbor was making inappropriate advances toward me. I had to run from his house, past his family in the living room, to get away. That gave me shivers.

From what I can make out, here are the causes:
- Tornado dream - No cause. I have this one periodically. I don't think it's a stress dream because I'm not particularly stressed, but it's a familiar theme in my dreams.
- Convict dream - The convict in the dream was the actor from Desperate Housewives who plays the creepy dad. What's his name? I think that show, plus watching all the Seasons of OZ might be having some effect on me. Then, of course, there's the convict chasing me/us bit... maybe I feel vulnerable?
- Elliott dream - The deck is similar to my parents' deck, but not sure what the fish biting his face is about. I vaguely remember that I didn't want to beat the fish off of Elliott because people would accuse me of animal abuse, so maybe it's from watching a lot of Animal Cops lately.
- Teenager dream - This just has to be from watching Election, the movie with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. In it she has an affair with her teacher. Not sure why it was me in the dream, but maybe it's that vulnerability thing again.

Okay, so there you go. This is all up for comment if you all have any other ideas.