Fish Dreams

So it has been kind of a joke between my roommate and fellow guide, Jesse, that we talk in our sleep.  For most people, reoccurring dreams consist of standing naked in front of a crowd of people or having their teeth fall out.  Who knows what those dreams mean?  Stress?  Anxiety?  Who knows...

When I first heard that I got the job at the ranch, I immediately started having anxiety dreams.  It was the same dream over and over again and I always woke up out of breath and nervous.  The dream consisted of me guiding for an outfitter on a large lake, not a river that I am accustomed to fishing, that resembled Lake of the Woods in Ontario, Canada.  It was almost tournament style with a whole bunch of boats leaving from one area.  As a fly fisherman that specializes in catching trout, the dream always starts out on a good note, even though I'm not 100% confident in fishing for them on a lake.  But very soon, I start to realize that it's not trout we are targeting... but walleye.  I obviously have no idea how to catch a walleye on a fly rod, aside from potentially throwing streamers to them while they are spawning in the shallows.  I start to panic and in the end fail to get my clients hooked into fish.  This goes on for two full "dream days" on the water and in the end get fired due to my lack of success.

It was a pretty horrible dream to keep having over and over again, but in the end, it was just a dream that I can attribute to anxiety of the unknown.

So, to get back to Jesse and me, we have both caught the other chatting away in slumberland.  It started with me, very soon after we began guiding guests on Goose Creek.  I was obviously in an intense REM cycle when I started to have the type of sleep where you are clearly dreaming, but feel as though you are awake and when you speak you can hear what you are saying.  Not sure if anyone else has that, but it's the best I can describe it.  I was dreaming of me on the creek with a guest and he or she (can't remember the gender) had the perfect drift of their fly and got a strike but missed the fish.  Out loud I yelled, "SET!  SET! SET!" and out of disappointment, muttered, "Oh man that was a nice fish..."  Jesse, after my first "SET!" was screamed across our humble particle board walled room awoke and heard the entire exchange.  Since I was in such a light sleep and could hear myself yelling this, I was then awake and we both shared a pretty good chuckle in the darkness.

The same thing happened to Jesse a few weeks later where I was awakened by Jesse yelling the same string of words, "SET! SET!" and then silence.  For that one, I simply had a good laugh to myself and went back to bed.

Last night, however, was hilarious.  I woke Jesse up with a repeat session of our previous dreams.  After my second "SET!" I woke up and noticed Jesse had awakened as well.  This was the exchange between us:

Drew:  "Oh shit, not again..."

Jesse:  "Did you get 'em?"

Drew: "Nope..."

We had a pretty hard laugh and then slowly resumed whatever adventures we had previously conjured up within our subconscious.