I woke up this morning and realized I'd been dreaming in Bulgarian.

Wow. Right?

I mean many people say this is the first sign that you're actually becoming fluent when you can dream in the language you're studying, learning or living. However in my case this dream was really just an extension of my real life--me stumbling and fumbling around. Only in this case, I was doing a good job conjugating verbs and I seemed to have a bigger vocabulary than I normally do.

This said, my dream was a pretty basic representation of my day-to-day life. The big difference was that instead of my interactions happening in real life--this time I was dreaming them up. There was nothing fantastic about my dream. Trust me, it was just me stumbling through Bulgarian.

It seems unnecessarily cruel that I've now started dreaming about this. As if I don't do enough of this during the day, I now have to dream about it as well? <em>Great</em>.<!--more-->

The dream was combination of the following two conversations.

Scene 1: The setting is this--I am out dancing on a Saturday night with friends.
<ul>
	<li>Guy speaking Bulgarian into my ear which sounds to me like: Mahwhaa aa la, la, la....</li>
	<li>Me, in Bulgarian: Excuse me?</li>
	<li>Guy, louder in my ear: Mahwhaa aa la, la, la... But this time I also hear his name!</li>
	<li>Me assuming I know what he's just said and filling in a lot of blanks in between respond in Bulgarian: My name is Carolyn. Nice to meet you.</li>
	<li>Guy, more: Mahwhaa aa la, la, la...</li>
	<li>Repeat of the first half of the conversation.</li>
	<li>Me in Bulgarian: I don't understand.</li>
	<li>Guy this time in pretty accent-less English: You dance well.</li>
	<li>Me: Um, thanks.</li>
</ul>
..........................................

Scene 2: The setting is a rainy weekend afternoon buying veggies at an outdoor market. I pick out two different kinds of lettuce.  Please note, the following dialogue is all in Bulgarian.
<ul>
	<li>Vegetable guy: Good afternoon.</li>
	<li>Me: Good afternoon.</li>
	<li>Vegetable guy looks at me and asks me : Mahwhaa aa la, la, li... onion?</li>
	<li>Me: What?</li>
	<li>Vegetable guy points at green onions and asks me some version of the question again.</li>
	<li>Me: No, I don't want onions.</li>
	<li>Vegetable guy tells me my total: 1 leva. And I pay.</li>
	<li>Vegetable guy: Mahwhaa aa la, la, li...?</li>
	<li>Me: What?</li>
	<li>Vegetable guy: Mahwhaa aa li... and this time he adds are you a French woman or German woman?</li>
	<li>Me: Oh, no. I am an American.</li>
	<li>Vegetable guy #1 to Vegetable guy #2: Hey, she's an American!</li>
	<li>Vegetable guy #2: An American?</li>
	<li>Me: Yes.</li>
</ul>
..........................................

My dream was basically a version of the two conversations above--a one sided dialogue. One where I was trying to rent a new apartment and order a cheese sandwich at the same time. Don't ask me why. And I only understood part of what people were telling and asking of me. I ended up just repeating I want it with sirene.  That's when I realized it was a dream.

So that's that.  I keep finding myself in situations where I have a vague understanding of the kinds of things one would probably be saying to me based on the context or the setting but I don't actually hear or understand what is being said to me. There are a number of external factors that influence my understanding from music to weather to accents and then there's my limited vocabulary.  My vocabulary allows me to survive in Bulgaria but gives me the sense that I am always living in a haze of sorts.

A haze that allows me to see, to touch (if I wanted to) and to hear whoever is speaking to me but it prevents me from understanding them. It's a dream-like haze if you will. Only I am not dreaming and luckily for me the haze isn't<em> as</em> thick as it was when I first arrived in Bulgaria.

Well, I take that back. Most of the time I am not dreaming.