For the past several months, I’ve been paying more attention to my dreams. I’ve actually gone so far as to start a GoogleDoc and type out as many details of my dreams as possible when I can remember them. My dreams are usually pretty neutral…not overly positive and not like a scene out of a horror movie. My dreams tend to have common themes like feeling out of place, getting lost, feeling anxious, and seeing bizarre scenes along the way.

As someone who manages a blog run by gnomes, you’d think that I’d have a lot more dreams about the lil’ buggas. But you know what? I don’t! And that is unfortunate.

Last night, however, I had a dream visiting a really amazing store full of gnomes and buying one that was unlike any I’d ever seen before. Here’s how it goes:

I felt suddenly compelled to go back to the job I worked at nearly six months ago and quit to find a better path. I wondered if they needed my help again and walked to my old office to see. Not unexpectedly, there were all sorts of people I didn’t recognize sitting in my old chairs and offices.

I felt awkward and out of place. I found an empty desk and began rummaging through it. There were stacks of $20 bills in one of them. I quickly closed the drawer, figuring that I would get blamed if one went missing. I stared out of the high rise window, gave a heavy sigh, and gave up on staying any longer.

I wandered out of the building, down the street, and into a shop that I’d never seen before, but that looked intriguing. The moment I walked in the door, my eyes lit up at all the gnomes staring back at me. I fixated one one particular porcelain sculpture by the door that was centered on a tiny pink and blue high heel. There were several gnomes perched upon the high heel, along with woodland creatures like foxes and squirrels.

I texted a picture of the sculpture to my boyfriend, who said he was on his way to see this store for himself. Finally not feeling out of place any longer, I bought it.

And then I woke up.

Perhaps my dream was reaffirming my feelings of feeling unsettled and out of place in my current environment. Perhaps it was letting me know that I made the right career decision six months ago. Perhaps it was telling me to not look into the past but embrace opportunities for chance and randomness that are coming ahead.

Or perhaps it’s just telling me to buy more gnomes.

Regardless, I’m hoping to have more dreams about gnomes in the near future. Not only because I think they’re awesome, but because they have a weird way of untangling my twisted mind and clearing out some space to think.

Photo credit: madlyinlovewithlife,katieash via Flickr