The expat sub-conscious

People talk about the subconscious mind as a powerful thing, often in a positive way--to harness one's subconscious thoughts will allow someone to find increased productivity, happiness and success.

I find the stakes change when you live as an expat, all bets are off. The subconscious functions at an entirely different level due to the differences it encounters all day long. Even in an environment like the UK which is similar to the US in not only culture but language, I spend much of the day processing what I see--whether it is the intentional or unintentional noticing of things.

When I lived in Germany the subconscious would occasionally voice its concern about being ignored by appearing in my dreams, in particular, in German. Sitting in an office with only German speakers, I picked up a lot of the language, even though I find it to be an unattractive collection of sounds. I had no interest to better my language skills, but that did stop it from plowing its way in and taking root. Then on occasion, for whatever reason my dreams would be frequented with German speaking--nothing I would on a conscious level encourage.

Here in the UK, I get the feeling a lot of the subscious behavior and actions are processed in the background. When processing is stalled or halted (for whatever reason), the subconscious takes over the only area it can find, my night-time dreaming, and then goes haywire with the amount of freedom of expression it suddenly encounters.

Last night, as I was falling asleep I found myself driving in California. Specifically, on El Camino Real (the 82), near Menlo Park, complete with Safeways and everything. I fought to stay awake while driving and suddenly shifted into a different part of the dream which turned into a nightmare. Upon waking from this nightmare I was able to recall this half-awake driving dream. Specifically, I was sitting in the right hand side driving (UK side), but driving on the right side of the road (US/Germany side). I'm not sure why this combination came together as it did, except that the driving here still requires conscious thought, and obviously the subsconscious has been working on it too.

I spent the rest of the night battling vivid dreams, (but not nightmares), waking up from one to fall back to sleep into another one. Why? Not sure. I've spent most of my free time this week (ie. every waking hour outside of work) focused on a non-work project, (which relates indirectly to what I do for work) and went too many days on minimum sleep. The dread? I rarely go one night like this--usually it will be two or three nights or so of such activities...