My Outlander Stress Dream…Looking forward to Sunday?

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Hi!  Been an age!  I know I have been scarce on Outlander Social Platforms, but in my defense, I’ve been busy.  That is mostly because my life has been a train wreck. I’m seriously considering changing my name to Calamity Jane or Blighted Beth.  My normal every day for the last two years has included some level of elevated stress.  I’ve sort of gotten used to it, so imagine my surprise when my motivation to start writing again was, …stress.  OMG!  I had the worst stress nightmare last night!  Usually, I can tell when my life is out of control because I have the same stress nightmare, a leftover from my days as a high school drama director.  In those dreams it is opening night, no one knows their lines, the lead drops out, and NO ONE has a costume (where is Terry Dresbach when you need her?).  But, THIS stress nightmare was completely different AND Outlander related.

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In this dream, I’m on my way to a comic con in NYC.  I’ve never been to a comic con, so that might explain why NYC looked like a Pennsylvania coal town.  I’m on my own, figuring out things as I go, driving my own car.  I pull up to a country church where there is a meet and greet.  Low and behold as I walk into the vestibule there stand Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan.  They are behind lecterns on either side of the vestibule and I can see the crowd sitting in the pews beyond them.  The two are looking down perusing some papers and I notice that sitting on each lectern is a clear shoebox full of yellow tickets like the kind they sell at high school sporting events for the 50/50.  I immediately deduce that there must be some kind of drawing, so I look around to see if I could find information.  There is a small line of folks filling out tickets behind me.  Feeling relieved that the info is “right there”, I decide it’s been a long drive to the comic con and I need to use the ladies’ room and I might want to take a peek in the mirror before I speak to Sam and Cait.  When I return to the vestibule I discover everyone is gone!  I spend the rest of my night driving my car around NYC coal town looking for the meet and greet, driving on the sidewalks, weaving in out of crowds and grieving that I was going to miss my chance to meet Sam and Cait!   Nightmarish to be sure.

I find dream interpretation to be fascinating and would welcome your interpretations, someone has to have a good explanation for my geography mash-up.  I’m guessing I had this dream now because Outlander is premiering this Sunday and I feel totally unprepared!  I’ve kinda put everything Outlander on the back burner and NOW I feel as knowledgeable about Outlander as most media outlets! (What is under that kilt?  JUST kidding! Trying to be snarky).  I even had to look up Sam and Cait’s names to make sure I spelled them correctly! One good thing about being relatively absent from the fandom is that I missed a lot of the drama.  I know there was some, but I’m thankful I didn’t get drawn into any of it.  So, I’m sort of watching without bias or preconceived notions! I know the previews I’ve watched look good and I am loving what I perceive as a focus on relationships.  I was thinking yesterday about the times they got Jamie really right and really wrong and how glad I am that Sam and Cait have some control and say in how their characters were portrayed this season.

I wasn’t really sure I was going to write about the season again, but evidently, my unconscious-self disagrees!  This morning, after recovering from driving all night, I find I’m getting excited to escape to Fraser’s Ridge with all of you and talk about the whole thing like Monday morning quarterbacks.  

 

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And if you see Sam and Cait at the comic con, tell them I’m sorry I missed them last night!

Sincerely,

Beth W.

 

56 thoughts on “My Outlander Stress Dream…Looking forward to Sunday?”

  1. Silke

    Hi, I had not wish you one nightmare – but to be honest: I’m glad there was this particular one that “brought you back”. 😉
    I am really really looking forward to your writing and expertise.

  2. Welcome back! Dream or no dream, stress or no stress (like THAT could ever happen), I am SO looking forward to the end of this droughtlander. I am hoping that the input that I hope Sam and Caitriona have had will be evident. Fingers crossed! – Dawn

  3. eataylo1

    All I can say is welcome back and I look forward to your insights. Oh yeah and was Sam wearing a kilt in your dream…asking for a friend….

  5. Patricia A. Thurman

    Thanks. That was great. Actually good to know that someone other than me has had trouble concentrating on Outlander because of personal problems. We have to come up with a name for me during my bad days.

    PS: I let phone battery die. Call whenever you can.

  6. Gigi

    Glad you’re back. My dream was going to the gym, working out really hard, waking up and thinking I don’t need to go to the gym today. 😂😂

  7. I’m glad to know others have disjointed dreams…. unfortunately I too have had a stressful start to this year. Spending the day reading Fiery Cross and waiting to head to the hospital first thing in the morning for a procedure. I turned on the television to discover that Comcast did shut off Starz… not sure who to blame, Lionsgate or Comcast. Either way not nice right before the season starts. So, I guess I’ll have to get to the local office on Friday and see what kind of deal I can get for the contract they broke. Look forward to your post and insight for the first episode. Thanks for returning in time!!

  9. Nancy Cowan

    Welcome back, Beth! I’m sorry for your stress and hope you feel better soon. Stress is so awful. Mine comes out in an ailment called Burning Mouth Syndrome (BMS). I, too, have similar dreams – about getting somewhere, getting lost, trying to find people, trying to catch up. Frustrating. I look forward to the new season of Outlander and your candid and insightful comments. Be well, Beth.

  10. Mary Beth Sheetz

    Seriously Beth if you need to de-stress – check out My Peak Challenge.com My 3rd year as a Peaker..total life change…makes fandom even more enjoyable!

  11. Hi Beth, lovely to know you are back. I don’t think I’ve ever dreamt about Outlander. I know I dream most nights but I’m afraid the images and content must fall out of my ears as I raise my head from the pillow as I never remember dreams. I’m sorry your life has been like a circus lately I hope writing your blog helps you de-stress. I’m going to guess that your dream means you are anticipating Season 5 and hoping you won’t have to search too hard to agree with the interpretation??? We know from the snippets it’s “not like the book” – LOL here we go again 😀
    Anyway, I don’t care. It’s lovely to have you back and I’m looking forward to watching Season 5 and reading your take on the show. 😀

  12. Betsy Spada

    Interesting…your stress dream usually being about a play… I was a theater major for two years in college and have done many plays, and I also sang a bit professionally when I was younger (read many decades younger…). My stress dreams have frequently been that it is opening night and I am about to enter, not knowing what play we’re doing, never having rehearsed or been given a script. That’s the most common one…the other one is that I know my lines but am not wearing anything… Good to know I’m not the only one that gets performance related stress dreams, thanks for that. I also agree with Mary Beth Sheetz about MPC…fantastic program.

  13. Beth, wishing you well and hoping all the drama has calmed down. Like so many have already said, your writing is wonderful and I look forward to seeing your musings. Like you, I am very tired of the Outlander drama, and have stopped following many, but your articles will be a refreshing change.

  14. Anne

    Beth, I am so happy you will be back. I look forward to your blog each week! Thank you for picking it up again. Maybe outlander will help you let go of the stress for a little while, at least enough so you can stop having those stressful dreams!

  15. jbeetem03b667e53a

    Welcome back Beth! Noticed somewhere online that you’ve had lots going on, so glad you haven’t left us. Your writing is so thoughtful and inspiring! Hopefully it will provide some stress relief for you, and here’s hoping that your stress issues will be resolved – for the better – soon!

  18. Johnnie Mae Welch

    I am so glad that you are back! I have missed your insights. Here’s to only good stress this season. Blessings! Johnnie Mae Welch

    Sent from my iPad

    >

  19. Mary F Landmann

    Jane, I mean Beth!
    I didn’t know how much I missed your blogs until now. I have had to take a break from everything Outlander as well. I have no idea what the drama was but now, I’m sure to dream about it tonight.
    I was in Theater for years and still have those same stress dreams about doing a revival and I’m about to go on but haven’t rehearsed one bit. I usually say to myself “TIME TO WAKE THE EF UP”!
    I have heard about your most recent family’s ordeal but I don’t now what happened to the little girl. (Niece?) But, I’m keeping you & family in my prayers. (Really, I do pray to Nancy!)
    Blessings,
    Mary-Frances Landmann

  20. Beth

    As I have wondered where your thoughtful blog posts were, I’ve been sillily ( I guess that’s a word) reminded of the wagon driver’s line from Dances With Wolves…”some folks back home be wondering ‘why don’t he write’ “. Well, I’ve been wondering “why don’t she write?” Now that I know it wasn’t just throwing in the towel on all things Outlander but, instead, being truly overwhelmed with more significant life-issues, I am sorry I doubted you and even more sorry life has hit hard recently. Studying the OT book of Daniel this week has reminded me that God sometimes walks us around the fire, sometimes walks us through the fire and, for some, ultimately he takes out of the fire and into his arms. I don’t know where the fire is and where you are, but I do hope you see and feel his presence.

  22. I was thinking about your dream and though I have little experience with such things, a few thoughts did get themselves thunk, so I’m tossing them out since, well, you did ask. If you were on your way to NYC from Ohio, you would, indeed drive through Pennsylvania so the whole coal town setting could have some basis for origin in the simple fact of that. You go through PA before you get to NY so perhaps you stumbled upon the Comic Con before you expected to. You were driving your own car, which puts you yourself in charge of your path. It seems you fully expected you were capable of getting yourself from Ohio to NYC but, while getting yourself there, arrived somehow…early…or more quickly…or whatever. A PA coal town is both by historical reputation and, well, fact, not a very appealing place. (I happen to live in western PA myveryself.) To me, it would seem, if one were expecting to be at a Comic Con in NYC, one would quite naturally expect something…more…than a PA coal town (great illustration you provided, by the by). Could that mean your subconscious was, ah, somewhat disappointed to find it was all less, much less, than you’d expected? I would imagine that in the midst of all the dirt and dilapidation that finding Cait and Sam in a country church in said town, that the church was the best, the nicest place, in the town and it was good that if they had to be somewhere in the town, that they were there. That the shoe boxes were clear would seem to mean that you were meant to be able to discern what was IN them. Whatever the tickets stand for in your mind, you made the decision that it was OK and that you needed to use the rest room before attending to the info that is ‘right there’, ie. available. You needed to, um, relieve yourself and to check your personal appearance as you cared how you would appear in Cait and Sam’s eyes. However, while you are tending to these personal matters, everyone leaves and, not only leaves, but leave no sign of where they have gone. Really disturbed by a deep sense of missing out, you get back in your car and search and search, even in places a car should not go but yet your personal quest is so strong it takes your car onto sidewalks and into crowds. Could it be that during these long months of trials and tribulations that something in you is somewhat less…sure…of your relationship to the whole thing, that it’s all different from what you’d thought it would be, and your personal needs disrupted your chance of having things go as you’d thought they would? And yet you still want it…badly.

    • Leslie Hultgren

      Joimus Holy cow I got tingly reading your interpretation. You underestimate your insight!

      Beth, hope life is falling in to place for you now. If you still feel sort of tossed and turned in an ocean of stress and activity, just ride a wave until you get to shore and you’ll be surprised that everything looks better from another perspective (and sand between toes is nice). Welcome back!!!!

  23. Joanie Murray

    Hi Beth! When I saw your email in my inbox, all I could think was “YAY!!!” So glad you’re back.

    My stress dreams always involve me arriving at a horse show but then I can’t find my horse, and by the time I do, I’ve missed my class. Ugh!

  24. Hi Beth – I am sure you won’t remember me as I only found your blog last year and to be truthful as you had not posted I had forgotten about it. However, it was so nice to receive the notification and remember how much I enjoyed your blog.

    Sorry for your stressful time – you have my sympathy, I did not have a good Christmas – family disagreements – I swear my husband and I will go far away from family next Christmas!

    I have been re-reading Fiery Cross (nearly finished) – there is a lot in that book! Also re-watching Season 4. I knew I had not liked it as much as previous seasons. Re-watching the beginning was not so bad except for Brianna trekking over the hills in a most un-Brianna fashion and of course staying with Leery (sorry can’t be bothered to look up the proper spelling). However, I am struggling to like the end – there were bits I really liked and some I just thourgh – why?

    Anyway, I will not be able to watch until Monday (in Scotland) so will be avoiding spoilers. Pleased to know you will be commenting.

    I dream a lot too but don’t think ever about Outlander!

  25. Janice P Frankel

    So happy to hear from you, Beth. If I had known you were even considering not talking about this season, I would have been very disappointed. A season of Outlander would be incomplete without your insights. I hope the end of droughtlander also brings an end to your stresses. My anxiety dreams always involve either being lost in a strange place or being unprepared for something important, including being dressed inappropriately or not at all.

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