So, a couple of weeks ago there I was... attempting to make a nice dinner. A little lemon pepper chicken, a vegetable, some starch thrown in for good measure... I was even doing my best at a Julia Child imitation. Anyway - My boyfriend called me into the other room and that is when it all went to pieces.

I left the kitchen for a minute, two at most. I turned around to go back to my edible masterpiece - and voila! I created fire! Not just any little kitchen stove fire, no no. The flames were out of control.

Smoke billowing everywhere. Smoke detectors beeping violently. And my defense mechanism had completely shut down. I stood there for a brief moment to appreciate the fire itself. Its power wrapped in its own simplicity. Okay... wait... this simple fire can burn us out of house and home.

Crap.

All I could get out of my mouth at that point, "Uh... fire.. big... fire.. help." My boyfriend came up behind me with a fire extinguisher in his hands (the brackets still attached to the extinguisher and no longer to the wall). When I thought he was about to let loose with the foamy stuff he looked at me and told me to do something.

Uhm... okay.

I reached through some of the flames (they were dying down a bit by now) and turned off the burner. I then did something that no one should ever do (take my word on this). I turned on the overhead fan. In my head, it seemed like a very good idea. Gets rid of smoke, right? So, why not flames?

I am just chalking this up to me not thinking clearly because of all the black smoke I sucked into my lungs by now.

Well, I was right in a way. The flames started to be drawn up into the fan. And, yep, you guessed it... the fan melted very quickly... ALL OVER THE STOVE.

I am not really sure what exactly happened next, but when I looked at the stove again, the flames were dying out. Poof. Gone. Just like that. I picked up the pan that held the inferno and threw it out into the snow. What a mess! Blackened walls, melted fan, tar-like goo on the tiles behind the stove. All of this because I walked away for a minute or two.

My boyfriend so wonderfully pointed out that no one was hurt, there was no permanant damage and that everything could be fixed with either new parts or new paint. He even had the paint on hand.

So, there we were scrubbing and painting. I kept apologizing and he said that everything was okay and I had nothing to worry about. But, I still was adament about apologizing until all the cows were home (as the expression goes).

When the walls looked like new and all bad parts were shoved in a corner we decided to go to sleep. I was so exhausted even though I still felt all the guilt swarming around in me. My eyes closed and I was out.

Let the dreams begin!

I was standing in a cabin, what I thought was my home, and I was waiting for my boyfriend to arrive. I turned and saw his car pull up, but he didn't come in right away. Next thing I knew, I saw flames grow around me. I heard him laughing and I started to scream and cry while wondering why he would do such a thing.

I woke up anxious and scared. I turned to my boyfriend and noticed that he was fast asleep. Not a peep. Not a motion. Nothing. I immediately realized that my brain and my guilt were working hand in hand manipulating my dreamworld. The fire in the dream was obviously because I had started a fire earlier that evening. So, no need to dig any deeper there. My boyfriend starting the fire meant one of two things; either I felt that my boyfriend was truly upset by what I had done or that I needed to let it go because now it had been done to me in return. The fact that he was laughing... well, it is a cruel world. But seriously, that is representative of a lack of emotion or caring. The fact that I was in a cabin that I saw as our home... well, usually houses and homes represent comfort, familiarality and safety. The burning of it stems from the guilt I was holding onto. Overall, taking all the pieces of the dream with what my boyfriend had said earlier in the evening, I was able to just let my guilt go.

If I looked at the dream as a whole, I wouldn't get the same answers. I would see a boyfriend trying to fry me in the same manner in which I fried his kitchen. But, breaking it all down shows that I was harboring feelings that were unnecessary. No one was hurt, we cleaned up the mess and we moved on. At least he did initially.

I haven't had a "burning bed" dream since.

If there is something I learned from this - it is that being able to work through a bad dream, such as the one I had, helps prevent them in the future. That... and I guess... don't ever leave the stove on and walk away!