To sleep, perchance to dream

Over the last few years, I've had a recurring dream maybe four, five times. In these dreams, I have killed someone and, though I have gotten away with it and I know that there's no way anybody will ever find out it was me, I'm unable to cope with the everyday feeling of guilt for what I've done. The guilt is maddening - walking around knowing what I've done is a tremendous burden, and I feel compelled to confess, even though I know it will ruin everything that I have worked towards.

The tension builds and builds, I reach a breaking point, and I wake up, having to tell myself over and over again, "It was just a dream... it was just a dream!" until I'm convinced that yes, indeed, it was just a dream. I never killed anybody. I can let go of the guilt. And so it goes until the next time.

I had this dream again on Saturday night. Unlike all the other times, this time my dream included part of the murder's planning. Though my memory of it is vague, I recall it involved poisoning. I had contrived an ingenious plan that I knew, based on my standing within the community, would achieve the desired result without giving anyone a reason to point the finger at me. The victim would be poisoned, but no residue would be left over either in the poison's container or within the victim - it would be the perfect murder.

I never know who I've killed. I only know that I've taken someone's life. And this awareness, try as I do to go on with my everyday life and be content knowing that I got away with it, is omnipresent.

Have you read Crime and Punishment? I began reading it around 10 years ago and never finished it. I seem to recall that the narrator goes through a similar experience. I became so engrossed in the book's plot and so entrenched in the main character's guilt and paranoia that I couldn't shake those feelings during the day. Kind of like how when I was tearing through the Lord of the Rings books I had dreams of being pursued by the Dark Riders.

What does it mean? They say that dreams contain meaning - and recurring dreams even more so, that they can contain a truth or a message so important that they refuse to go away. That they are triggered by a life problem or situation that keeps coming back again.

What does it mean? I'll have to sleep on it (though preferably not on my couch with the lights on and in the clothes I wore all day yesterday and with the taste of sausage and pepperoni pizza in my mouth because I fell asleep before brushing my teeth, which is how I woke up 15 minutes ago).