Leg Dreams

I’ve always had incredibly vivid dreams. So much so that, as a kid, I kept a notebook on my nightstand so I could wake up and write about the wildest ones. There were labyrinths and dream boyfriends before there were real boyfriends. And then there was that one time I had a nightmare that Robert De Niro was scratching my bedroom window. It turns out it was just bougainvillea thorns swaying in the wind. So when I lost my leg, I wondered if my dreams would be any different. Would I have one leg or two? Or would I become some superhero that hovered over the ground and had no need for limbs at all?

My actual superhero power is that I occasionally dream lucidly, meaning I am aware that the dream is not reality and can use my creativity to take the storyline anywhere I want. So after surgery, when my dreams didn’t even feature my legs, I would try anything and everything to look down at them with no luck. It was like that part of my dream brain was password protected. I could move around, but I had no idea if I was using my legs, a prosthesis, or a wheelchair to do so. Months later, I had two legs in all my dreams. It was STRANGE dream walking around the way I did for the first thirty five years of my life while simultaneously being aware that if I actually tried to step out of bed and onto my right leg, I would face plant onto the hardwood floor. Over the last 3.5 years, I have only had a handful of dreams where my right leg is missing. The brain is such a complex memory box that we may never understand exactly how and why we dream the way we do. But ultimately, I think my right leg was a part of my life for so long that it will always be intertwined with my dreams. Occasionally, my prosthesis, Kiki, will make an appearance, but she is still a relatively new character and is working hard to become a leading leg lady. I see an Oscar in her future.