I don't have many recurring dreams, but this one has been rerunning a lot lately:
I am on a beach in Florida (As a kid, my family used to drive to Florida just after Christmas for our vacation. I haven't been to Florida, though, since I was about 12 or 13). The skies are usually overcast, but the water is mostly calm and warm. Sometimes, I just go swimming in the ocean. Other times, I am swimming towards a small island.
The island is not much bigger than a sandbar, but it has a few palm trees and a couple of rocky outcroppings. It feels very familiar, like some place I have visited many times, even maybe played on as a child (I have no actual memory of such a place). Though I am not a strong swimmer in real life, in the dream it is very easy for me to swim in the ocean (whether or not I am swimming to island in the dream's storyline). When I get to the island, I feel like there is something important about it that I can't remember. When I wake up, I can remember the island so vividly, though, that I can draw a map of it, including the locations of trees and rocks.
Last night, I had a variation on the swimming dream. I am wearing a cute, 1950s-ish one-piece swimsuit and at an indoor pool where there are many people swimming. One of them is a guy I have a horrible crush on and I want to go into the pool, but I am intimidated by all the people around. He sees me and tries to get me to dive in, but I am too afraid of the water (this dream has rather transparent imagery, no?).
