Of Sleep and Dreams

I awoke this morning after over twelve hours of exhaustive sleep. I fell asleep on the couch at 9:30pm (pretty unusual and unheard of in my world). I never got up once to change out of my day clothes, to get a drink of water, eat, take my night time meds or to wash up. I think that is called utter exhaustion.
  I attribute most, if not all, of my heavy slumber to a highly emotional therapy session yesterday. Seriously, I cried heavy, age old tears for an hour straight. Yeah, I was engaged in breaking massive blocks and overwhelming memories.
 I awoke quite groggy, off balance and still quite tired, but it was time to get up.


And Boy, did I have dreams, all rather similar in quality and content. I dreamt I was driving along, neither slow nor fast, and suddenly found myself on a small sandbar, barely bigger than my vehicle, in the middle of a lake. It had to be a few hundred feet, in all directions, to solid land. I was positively terrified and heartily panicked. I didn't know how to swim, in real life Or the dream world.
 I don't know how often others feel emotion in dreams. From what I've gathered it's rather unusual. I felt the fear most intensly.
 And the sandbar started to sink. My vehicle disappeared under the water. Standing there, I scanned the rim of the lake to determine the shortest route. (didn't matter too much, I'd drown any way I went.)
 The water rose and I had no choice but to try and swim for land straight ahead. I attempted to swim.
Immediately, as the water engulfed all but my head, I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was warm. (I love warmth and can never seem to get enough of it. The temperature was comforting.)
 I began to swim. In addition to the warmth, the other anomalous quality of the water was it had a bouyancy, it lifted me up, prevented me from falling below the surface. Hmmm, it rather held me up so that my arms could easily paddle me to shore.
What a relief!
My interpretation: Simply driving along, moving forward in my life, I found myself amongst, what I perceived to be, certain death/ an insurmountable obstacle. My perception was wrong. Unseen, benevolent forces helped me through. What was impossible became rather easily, doable due to other anonymous forces. Hmmm, interesting.
Last week, I had almost this same dream. I was driving along and suddenly found myself surrounded by water (water always represents emotion in dreams) and the road was disappearing. I found myself floating, floating upwards to watch this scene unfold from a distance.
 Well, I guess it's quite obvious that I am dealing within this newly opened realm of emotions. It's scary and frightening and I don't enjoy it....but apparently this is my path. In the dreams, I am always driving straight...the way I need to be going, forward.....Forward Hooooe!
 Hmm, maybe it, this road, won't be as bad as I fear. And it is The only road.
Be well