When I was a little boy, I used to walk around the house with one of my mother's hand mirrors. I'd imagine as I gazed down upon the ceiling moving in the reflection, that I was actually walking, not on the carpet (hidden beneath the mirror), but on the ceiling. Try it some time! :-)
So, on Monday, I went on a hunt to find some Chigarid. I haven't been able to get much sleep recently. Chiggers have been feasting upon me, and as a result the itching has kept me up at night.
After visiting the pharmacy at Krogers and then WalMart, I couldn't find anything but "Chiggerex". I wasn't sure that the stuff would actually kill the chiggers, so I called my mother to find out what she used to put on the bites. I thought it was clear nail polish, but I wanted to be sure. So, she confirmed that clear nail polish is what she used to suffocate them. So, I picked up a cheap bottle of the stuff.
While I was still in the nail section, I noticed a girl talking on her cell phone to her mother, and she was holding some "Chiggerex" in her hand. Astounded, I pointed at her Chiggerex, and said, "I am looking for the same stuff you are!" I showed her where the clear nail polish was. (She appeared to be more eaten up then I was, at least from her visible sores.) Her mom also verified my concern that Chiggerex wouldn't work as well as Chigarid, which the girl said I might be able to find at the local CVS store. Sure enough, the next day, I picked up the last bottle from CVS.
During lunch, I rehearsed the coincidence to some friends in the cafeteria, and found out from one of them that chiggers don't actually bury themselves under the skin, consequently, nail polish doesn't suffocate them. The itching is mostly caused by the infection which the mouth of a chigger creates with its saliva. So, we don't sufficate them to kill them, but they typically die after we scratch/rub them off, leaving their mouth in our skin to bother us for days, as the article below details.
http://www.conservation.state.mo.us/nathis/arthopo/chiggers/
The article even suggests that chiggers here in the Southwest bite us "on accident", and would much rather feed on birds. Consequently, their saliva causes us to itch because we are not their intended host (it has no affect on birds).
In anycase, even if Chigarid doesn't kill chiggers, it is effective in helping to stop the itching, and its "nail polish" like character does help keep me from scratching it and causing an infection.
I rarely have nightmares. But I have noticed in recent years that I have re-occurring dream incidents related to the theme of "losing control". One such incident is losing control of my car, usually not being able to brake. I suppose this could become a nightmare if I suddenly needed to brake on the highway when traveling at a high speed. But this has never been the case. Usually, I am driving in the neighborhood and slowing to park. At that point my car keeps gliding until it hits something. My typical reaction in the dream is to try to calm myself about it, perhaps guessing the damage was not that significant or to assure myself it is just a dream.
In another use of "transportation" as symbolic vehicle, I've had more than one dream where I'm in an airport and I'm not quite sure where I am supposed to go, or how to get there. A sense of being lost, having no sense direction.
Other dreams involve the incident of suddenly remembering some big responsibility that I had forgotten. A common occurrence of this is being in school (usually college) during finals week, and suddenly remembering some class that I had somehow managed to forget to attend the entire semester! Dreadful experience. Along the same lines, I've had the same experience pertaining to working at Sonic Drive-In (where I cooked hamburgers and fries for 5 years through high-school and college). Suddenly, I remember that I'm supposed to work this weekend, and must have forgotten to show up for several weekends. How would I explain myself?
Sometimes I find myself walking into a gymnasium and discovering my name upon some wrestling tournament bracket. I think, "There must be some mistake! I thought I was finished with all this!" Yet, it never seems to dawn on me to ignore the event altogether. So, I typically end up wrestling again.
There are a few dreams where I get so worked up over something I scream at someone close to me (eg. a relative). The feeling of anger is consuming. For people who know me, such outbursts are quite out of character for me. I hardly ever get angry. Irritated and frustrated sometimes, but never outright outrage.
It's hard for me to believe that such reoccuring dreams are simply pointless and random. No doubt they stem from suppressed anxieties during a particular season in my life, or some disharmony in a relationship that I should deal with.