Reflections and A Weird Dream

 I feel very confused at the end of the day today.

I met all of my expectations for today, except that of exercise. Put in a good day of work: finished physics homework, took cs and physics textbook notes, watched my cs lecture. I practiced the piano. I ate well. I'm writing this blog post now. I succeeded to a large degree at the goals I've been working on for the past couple of weeks: waking early and limiting my chess.

Something feels incomplete still. Maybe it's that I didn't go for a run today. Maybe it's that I didn't work enough. Maybe it's that I didn't wake early enough. Maybe I took too long of a break at 9pm. Maybe it's that I didn't restrain myself enough. Maybe it's that I had too much fun. Maybe it's that I'm so overwhelmed by my experiences. I don't know what.

I had a strange dream on Sunday morning, three nights ago. I only remember 3 snippets of the dream of about 1-2 seconds. Maybe there was more to the dream, but probably not. I dreamed I was in the bathroom--an unfamiliar bathroom, maybe that of a hotel or an AirBnb. First, as I was heading to the shower of the bathroom, I saw a small scorpion near the faucet, white and red and about the size of a large spider. I ignored it and entered the shower. Second, after entering the bathtub, I looked back towards the door of the bathroom and saw the scorpion was now resting vertically on the door. It was bigger now. I still ignored it. Third, a couple minutes after, as I was showering, I saw the scorpion crawling on the floor towards me. It was even bigger now, about the size of a small pizza box.

I was cornered; I could not escape. The scorpion was crawling towards me along the only exit route I had from the shower. Furthermore, I was not in a standing position so I could readily attack the scorpion or jump away. Rather, I was sitting in the bathtub. The scorpion crawled inside the bathtub and bit my legs below the knee. My legs encountered a sharp shock of pain and I called out for my parents. I felt myself drift away from consciousness, maybe as a consequence of the venom in the scorpion.

At this terryfing point, I awakened and realized that I had been dreaming.

My encounter with the scorpion engendered many of the same feelings within me as when I miss a homework deadline. All of a sudden I feel vulnerable and helpless, though I could have handled the danger earlier if I had not underestimated it.

My recollection of this dream struck me more strongly than any other dream that I recall this year. I think there's some importance in writing it down and reflecting on it.