Dreaming again

As you know if you have been reading my posts, my family has been going through a stressful time lately and I sometimes get to the point where I feel the need to rid myself of some of the stress to prevent myself from exploding (or curling up into the fetal position and crying for my mommy; pathetic, I know)! I have found a pretty good way to relieve myself of some stress.

When I feel overwhelmed with stress, I go into my bedroom and close my eyes. I concentrate on breathing to sort of clear my mind. Then I begin building my homestead in my mind. It sounds corny I know, but it really does work! I am way out on a country road. The neighbors are far enough away that I cannot see them from the end of my driveway. I have a long driveway! As I turn from the county road into my driveway, set back about five to ten feet from the drive on one side is wire fencing marking off pasture areas where my livestock roam. Further up the drive we pass the barn at the back of the pasture. On the other side is a fish pond area filled by a naturally occurring spring. The house sits on a south facing, gently sloping hill. On the top of the hill behind the house is the orchard, more to the side is a woodlot for harvesting firewood, and interspersed everywhere is gardens, food giving bushes, brambles, and trees.

I accomplish three things with this dreaming activity. First I do reduce stress. Second, I come up with more and more ideas of my "perfect" homestead. Third, I take the recurrent things going through all these dreams and put it on my must have list and I also use this list to further my research. For instance, a commonly recurring theme in my dream is a house built on a gently sloping, south facing hill. In none of these "dreams" is my house on straight up flat ground. This tells me that when I look for land, I need to look for land containing a gently sloped south facing hill. Or as close as I can get anyway. In many of these "dreams" I also see fields of gently swaying grass or grain. This tells me I need to do more research on growing these things and how they can be used. I guess there is a fourth accomplishment with these dreams and that is providing myself with constant motivation because I can "see" the end result!

Of course, sometimes the stress is so bad or comes on so quickly that I really need a punching bag session first! I don't have a punching bag so hey, I use what's available, right?