Dreaming to Travel

I don’t normally put much stock in dreams. Maybe that’s because I don’t often remember my dreams. Often the few that I remember turn out to be quite odd, but sometimes they’re at least relatively normal. Often I become aware in the dream that I’m dreaming — which usually means that I’m soon to wake up. I don’t tend to have recurring dreams either, strictly speaking, but occasionally I do have a dreams that appear to be parts of a series or sequence, or definitely related to each other in some fashion. Sometimes those occur in the same night, sometimes they’re spread out over several days. Those multi-part dreams tend to catch my interest more, and I tend to remember them better after I wake up.
Well anyway, last night I had two separate dreams about my passport (which expired back in mid-January). More specifically, the issue of not being able to go somewhere because I hadn’t renewed my passport. In the first dream I was about to book a trip to New Zealand (I think), but then I realized I wouldn’t be able to go because I didn’t have a current passport. I got frustrated, woke up, and then fell back asleep. In the second dream I was at home in Wisconsin, and had gotten everything packed, and was about ready to get a ride to the airport for a flight to Australia. I was taking a walk down by the lake, when all of a sudden it occurred to me that I hadn’t renewed my passport. Suddenly I was incredibly frustrated and disappointed, and decided that my only hope was to go to the airport and hope they let me in with my expired passport. And then I woke up, very aware that I’d just had two dreams about an expired passport thwarting my travel plans.
Is there a moral to the story? I have no idea, other than I should stop dawdling. Whether or not it was a prodding from God (maybe He has something for me to do on a trip to some country in at least 4-6 weeks from now) or just the product of thinking occasionally over the past few weeks that I really should stop putting it off and send in the renewal form, my dreams prompted me to finally take action. Today. So this afternoon I filled out the form, and early this week I’ll make an appointment at the post office to get passport photos taken. I will send everything in this week. I don’t want the lack of a passport to prevent me from going someplace cool, whether it’s someplace far away like Australia for a few weeks or someplace relatively nearby like Toronto for a baseball game or whatever.
Maybe tonight I’ll have dreams about actually being able to go to Australia or someplace. Maybe someday I’ll actually go somewhere again. I’d like that. Especially before I’m done with grad school. So I’d say I have roughly 1.5-2 years in which to fit in a big trip somewhere. Or two! That’d be cool, too. My dream trip right now is to go back to Australia & New Zealand for 3 weeks (or more, if it can be managed), preferably with Alex. I’ve already done the whole traveling alone thing in Aus & NZ, so I’m not all that eager to go by myself again. Hopefully things will work out for us to go, either this summer (now looking not so likely), next summer, or sometime in between. I’m definitely getting tired of saying “maybe next year” though!