Kites and equations

So if there was a rule book of blogging, I'm sure it would say DO NOT WRITE ABOUT YOUR DREAMS in big red letters, but I do not myself think dreams are boring and I'm not particularly predisposed to following most kinds of rules. So the thing I am pondering right now is: are dreams more interesting when you can figure out an explanation, or when your subconscious seems to have been taking some kind of weird drugs while you weren't looking?

Last night I dreamed I was at home and we were flying kites. I let my sister have a go with a particularly awesome kite, and she let it go and it blew away. I was ridiculously, weepingly devastated and viciously angry. This is pretty obviously a dream about the impending sense of loss and misery of leaving Mexico. Secondarily, my subconscious is probably blaming my sister for this, since the main date determiner is needing (and wanting) to spend some time with her (and my brother) before she goes to university in autumn. Also, I miss flying kites. Simple.

On the other hand, in yesterday's dream I was back in more-or-less a school chemistry lab, complete with my old teacher, who always seemed faintly amused and on the edge of a nervous breakdown. We were doing a really basic practical to illustrate the principles of making up a solution, with one of those photocopied worksheets and everything. The sheet said we were allowed to make up a solution of whatever (known) strength we liked, but then my teacher told me I should have done the strength it gave as an example (and that was so me as a teenager, perversely doing the odd or awkward or difficult thing). So, I had to change my solution to the right strength by adding more water. So my dreaming brain starts figuring out how much I should add to get the right ratio, with an equation of the form a/b = x/y. It is difficult to do this without paper, but after the numbers slipped through my fingers a few times I got what seemed to be the right answer. And then I woke up.

But that was not the end of the story, oh no. I spent my first few half-sleeping minutes (turn on water heater, go to loo, stand in bedroom staring vacantly about, have shower) slowly and painfully working it all out again to check I had the right answer, realising I'd got my sums right but made a mistake in the initial ratio, and working out the new equation, before being properly awake and realising that it actually didn't matter at all. I do quite like algebra, but it was something of a headachey way to start the day.

So what the hell brain? Sleep algebra? For why?! I haven't done more than add up my change for ages. I haven't thought about school, chemistry, or maths. Where do you get these things from?

I have always liked the weird, inexplicable dreams best, but maybe I should find the explicable ones more interesting - at least they represent some kind of insight?