Do You Ever Have Bad Dreams?

Friday night is one of my favorite nights. Know why? Because Saturday morning is the only morning I don't have to be up at a particular time. I can stay up late, watch a movie, color my hair, do "maitenance" (my lovely slang meaning body hair control...legs, pits, eyebrows and anything other area that needs wayward hairs to be ripped out of my body) or read a book. The night is all mine, and I cherish it. On nights when Mr. R is not home, I can watch HGTV to my little hearts content, pretending I have $5000 to spend on decorating my house. Yowza. I get the queen size bed to myself. I make sure I have fresh sheets, the blinds shut so I get none of that infernal daylight, fluffy pillows, and comfy pjs that don't bind or pull.
Last night was Friday night, and I was psyched. At 11:30, once I did my usual perimeter check, I settled into my soft bed. I said my goodnight prayers to the Lord and sank happily into my mattress. I was pretty tired after a long week, so it didn't take long for me to fall asleep.
I don't know about most women, but I am pretty sure that even while I'm sleeping, all I do is think. My mind is constantly whirling with ideas, thoughts, plans and worries. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and wonder if all I did was think all night.
I have two recurring awful dreams. One is a reenactment of my car accident. In my car accident, it was raining, and when I was avoiding an extremely reckless driver, my car started to hydroplane and spin on I4. It was truly one of the most terrifying nights of my life, and I was certain I was going to die. I hit two guardrails, and was hit by three separate cars, just trying to avoid one dumb driver (who, by the way sued me and WON, despite HER getting the ticket. Thanks, Florida no fault laws!) In my dream, I'm back in my old car, spinning and spinning and spinning. I keep screaming but my car never hits the guardrails. I just spin. Then I get dizzy, and I've actually vomited in my sleep from the sensation of the spinning.
The other awful dream involves tornadoes. We do get tornadoes here in Florida, and in fact, Mr. R's mom lost an apartment in one in DeLand, Florida back in 2006. So this is not a dream that is just nonsense, but is something that can actually happen. In my dream, there is a tornado coming. The sky is a sickly green, I can hear wind roaring, and my children are crying. I am running for a closet. I can hear Bucket crying on one side of the house, and Tiger screaming for me on the other side of the house. The tornado is about to hit...which child do I help, and which one will get sucked out of the house?
In my dream, I never choose. I always wake up crying, and in my dream, the roof has lifted off my house and my children are gone. In my hesitation, I lost all of them to the tornado.
Now, I don't get these dreams often. Normally the tornado dreams happen on nights when I drift off during a thunderstorm. The car accident dream is more frequent.
I am not a person who enjoys living in fear. In fact, the Bible preaches against it. During daylight hours, I am not scared of much. I drive my car, I watch the weather, and I prepare my household, much like the Proverbs 31 woman. But at night, my fears tend to come alive. I am now nervous about driving in the dark, especially in the rain (to the point where I will sometimes cancel plans if Mr. R is not home to drive.) I have made myself so sick over the driving issue that I've given myself nosebleeds when I'm driving because I am holding my breath so intently. And at least during the day, one could see a tornado coming. At night, the dark hides the funnel, and you could never see it until it has hit your home, which is what happened to Mr. R's mom.
So I prepare the best I can. The kids know if I scream "tornado" to run into their closet and shut the doors. I scheduled my life that I don't normally drive much at night. I will go to the store and to the kids schools and to my mom's after dark, but you will not catch me on I4 after 8pm unless someone is dying.
Fear is not a way to live. I'm making sensible changes to overcome it, but I'm not quite there yet.