But A Dream Within A Dream

March 1, 1995
Once my dad had a dream he saw Indians riding bikes.

March 3, 1995
Last night my brother had a dream he flushed Cyres Jorge down the toylet.


I've always thought that dreams are fascinating. It's fun to find correlations between what you dreamed about and what's going on in your life at the moment. It's amazing when answers come to you in your dream, almost as if your brain is using that time to make sense out of predicaments that are too complex when we're busy during the day. When I was working on making a parody video of Robert Pattinson's fans (which can be viewed here), I had dreams about the guy. Very weird to experience, very interesting to think about from an objective perspective.

As fun as it is to analyze these things, I've come to realize that I tend to rate my dreams differently than most people. From what I've gathered, most people tend to rate their dreams based on content. If you hooked up with your current love interest, it's a good dream. If there are flesh-eating zombies everywhere, it's a bad dream. However, content doesn't really factor as much into how I rate my dreams. I tend to rate my dreams on the intensity of the emotions involved. If there are diseased zombies all over the place, attacking my loved ones, yet it's as though I'm merely watching a movie and am not emotionally invested in it, the dream doesn't bother me. I don't view it as a "bad" dream. However, I've had dreams where the content would normally be rated "good," but the level of intensity of my emotions in the dream were so high that they felt real. I woke up still feeling that way, and it's such a worrisome experience that I rate the dream as "bad." For example, I once had a dream that I was in love with someone. The entire dream was just the two of us being together, in love. We laughed, we hung out, it was overall a "good" dream, when judged solely by its content. But the feeling of being in love was so intense and so real, that when I woke up the next morning, it was shocking. It jarred me so much that I considered it a bad dream. Obviously when positive emotions can earn a "bad" rating, then negative emotions most certainly can.

Thus far, I haven't met anyone else who rates dreams the same way. Most people tell me that content is the main factor in determining whether or not their dream is a good or bad one. I've even had some people tell me that their dreams are hardly emotional to begin with. Does this make me more emotional than most? Or am I simply analyzing things differently? You be the judge.

Elisa, What Were You Thinking?

Editor's Note: This post is full of things that make me wonder exactly WHAT was going on in my little head back then. Enjoy.

First Grade
August 22, 1994
This weeked I Ball

October 24, 1994
Why don't you take a bath hone you stek and put womes with it.

December 5, 1994
How do you make things? Out of play-doh. Oh-no your brother is knocking down your egg. Bad brother bad I'm so mad. Well if you do that again Hector I will tell mom on you.

January 11, 1995
My berthday is AG the 4th. Oh how nice my techer is her name is Ms Ferguson.

April 26, 1995
When my brother was trying to wake me up he went like this in my ear B B B B B B B B B

Second Grade (Dates unknown)
"Bats are so pecuelar. I really don't now a lot about bats. But I seen bat doo-doo."

"I like my new glasses. They are blurple and marchon."

-Elisa, ages 6 and 7

Something is Wrong

October 26, 1994
My name is Elisa but something is wrog that I love every one.

-Elisa, age 6, First Grade


Message from Future Elisa to 6 year old Elisa:
Sometimes, it can seem like something is wrong if you love everyone. Love is a pretty big responsibility. Really, you don't have to actually LOVE everyone, but it is good to be kind. Remember to be kind to everyone, and that can be just as good (if not better) than loving everyone.

When you love someone, there are a lot of expectations that come along with it. You won't necessarily be able to fulfill all of these expectations with one person, let alone many people. All you can do is show them that you love them to the best of your own ability.

You also have to remember that there are many different kinds of love, too! There's the kind of love where you want to get married (I call that romantic love), familial love (that means where you love your family like mom and dad), brotherly love, love you share with your friends, love you hold for people who have had an impact on you and may not fit into any of those categories, and many more.

Don't worry if you don't understand all of this, 6 year old Elisa. It's 15 years later, and I'm still trying to figure out this "love" business.

Sunday Sermon

October 18, 1994
God I love you and I love other's and I mite go to haen.

December 8, 1994
Did you know abuout God's angles. Well if you don't you well have to go tog church.


-Elisa, age 6, First Grade

My Barthey

November 7, 1994
My favrite day is my barthey and my friends that they woold say happy-barthey.


Today is my barthey! Er... I mean, it's my birthday. Twenty-one years ago today, I was born. I was born a week late. If I had held on for four more days, I would've been born on 8/8/88. But I suppose I was already giving my mom enough grief hanging on for a week longer as it was. She says, "Even then, you were sleeping 'til noon!"

(I don't ALWAYS sleep until noon... not often anyway...)

This year, I'll be celebrating my birthday by eating dinner with my family at Red Lobster. Those cheesy biscuits are practically sinful, they are so delicious. And to acknowledge that social milestone of turning 21, I'll be sharing a margarita with my mommy. If that's not classy, I don't know what is.

People who share this birthday:
Barack Obama
Louis Armstrong
Louis Vuitton
Richard Belzer
Billy Bob Thornton
Roger Clemens
Jeff Gordon
Richard White (voice of Gaston in Disney's Beauty & the Beast)

Well, that was interesting. I hope you learned something.

If you know someone who shares this birthday as well, I hope that you would wish them a happy-barthey.