Triumphant Dream

I've been dealing with a pronounced depressive phase of my bipolar recently. Recent days, I typically stay in bed all day and don't get up until the evening. And even then, I don't feel like doing anything until I've been up for several hours. Until that time, I generally zone and vegetate, doing nothing except hanging out in writers' chats waiting for my mood to improve a smidgen. 

When I'm depressed like this, the dreams I have just before waking play a big role in how I'm able to face the day. I typically recall how positive or negative or neutral my last dream was before waking, and often I actually recall the dream. When I'm experiencing a pronounced depressive phase like this, any dreams that are even just neutral tend to induce me to roll over and go back to sleep. Decidedly positive dreams make me more willing to face the day, though they don't lift my depression, and occasionally even enable me to want to be productive much sooner than average. 

Now some background for the dream:

Several years ago, I had a frustration dream. In this dream, I had just gotten hired on at a school of some sort and part of my job was to take home the receipts from the meal sales in the cafeteria to tally them up. To transport these receipts, I was given a lockbox with a long key. To unlock the lockbox, I was to insert the key in the back end of the lockbox (it was a hidden lock). 

In the original dream, the first time I took the receipts home, everything went as it was supposed to. I was able to unlock the box and do my job. The second time did not go quite as well, however. No matter how I tried to unlock that lockbox, I couldn't get it open. I had family members try. Took it back to the school and explained the problem, and the principal himself tried to unlock it without success. Just before waking up, I ended up taking the lockbox to a deserted room and trying to open it one last time to no avail. Frustrated, I jammed the key in halfway, I think so it wouldn't get lost. I then woke up, and after a few days, forgot about the dream. 

Fast-forward to today. I went to bed this morning after finishing up figuring out some issues with this blog. Didn't sleep deeply, but I did get a good amount of time in bed. 

The last dream brought me back to that lockbox.

Apparently, I returned to the school and found the deserted room with the lockbox, with the key sticking halfway out of the backside of it. In the dream, I thought, "Well, I remember leaving this here in frustration. Maybe it'll work this time." I went up to the table the lockbox was on and took the key out of the lock, then reinserted it—all the way. 

And this time it turned.

The lid of the box popped up. Now, years had also passed in the dream, so these receipts were pretty useless, but I opened the box. I shouted in joy, and family members and the same principal who was there before came in to see what I was crowing about. When they saw I'd gotten the lockbox open, they cheered too. We had a little celebration about my success, and I woke up.

So, while I'm still feeling depressed, I'm in a better frame of mind. I wonder if this is a symbolic way that my mind is telling me it's unlocked something within my psyche that I need. Maybe something to do with my writing? LOL