To Dream Perhance to....Panic?

I woke up twice last night just short of panic.  This has not happened to me for a very long time. So long that I had almost forgotten how very bad it feels to come out of sleep gasping and disoriented.  I think I was having nightmares, but I don't remember.  There was something about a snake and, the second time flashes of bright colored fabric. But what it means...who knows?  I have never even really been quite sure what school of dream theory I subscribe to.  The random flashes of the synapses, that we, makers of meaning that we are, simply must put story to?  The "digestive system" of the brain, working through the flotsam and jetsam of the day, putting it in order and figuring out where and how amidst the options available to store this feeling or that memory? An arcane and magical set of symbols, tapped deeply into the collective unconscious or some other deeper Knowing that helps us connect, if we are willing to attend, through our dreams to deeper and greater truths?  Or all of this...or none?

All I know for sure is that it is not a nice way to start the day.  However, it does feel, as we say in my biz, rather "mood congruent" for the way of things of late.  The last time I had these nasty night panic things, as well as waking anxiety at the level I'm now carrying it, was during my internship.  Those were twelve long dark months that I'd never wish to live through again.  I'd like to think that I am personally a lot healthier now and have a lot more going for me in the coping skills department, as well as a rock solid support system and safety net par excellence.  But I also know well my vulnerabilities.  This generally is not my favorite time of year.  It's cold, it's dark and people often demand cheerfulness of a level that I just can't quite muster. It's pretty much taking what I have to get up and get here, be here.  And I am practicing some restraint (the filter posts to the contrary), which takes even more.

I note that I am still capable of gratitude and I consider this a very good sign.  Small things that really are not so small...R's knowing when all is not well, coffee in the bloodstream, the waggy Maggie in the morning kitchen....the small Voice that reminds me..."it will pass, it will pass." The knowledge that there IS a cruise out there somewhere with my name on it, and that this time next year......anywhere but here....these things help too.  But today is a darkish one.  And I am plodding through.