A Lighter View
Dreams deciphered
By K.E.H. Stagg

March 26, 2009

We’ve all experienced nerve-wracking stress dreams: the one in which the dreamer arrives late to class, only to discover it’s the final minutes of a complicated essay exam; or where the creamer crouches behind the largest available shrub (even, in desperate cases, a washcloth) so as to avoid the charge of indecent exposure from passers-by. Those dreams make sense, in a strange way, because the stress that prompts them is palpable, even to the less-than-soundly sleeping dreamer.

And the heroic rescue dreams—where a bit of fast-thinking keeps the train from running off the tracks or some heretofore unknown skill permits escape from the jaws of a predatory creature—those make sense, too. We’d all like to think we’re capable of incredible feats, whether we have opportunity to show the aptitude in real life or not.

The dreams that make less sense are the ones in which the dreamer is both participant and narrator. What, for example, is lying dormant in the sub-conscious of the person who dreams that the international flight scheduled for immediate departure is to take place in a giant aircraft that’s been run into by numerous other aircraft that left telltale scrapes, dents and smears of paint? Or what is it that causes a person to dream there’s tremendous urgency to swim to the bottom of a body of water, stuff a maillot full of coins—some of them as large as a closed fist—and get back to the water’s surface? And what is the purpose behind dreaming that one can fly through the air by lifting long ponytails and land on the ground by lowering them again? Even the audible aside to watch out for high-power lines seems strange. And what does it all mean, anyhow?

If Walt Disney’s lyricists spoke truthfully that “a dream is a wish your heart makes,” then perhaps some of us need a strong dose of an antacid to relieve heartburn! But making a mad escape—on foot—to the border of whatever country is being invaded by hostile forces; or noting that the murderer is wearing pink stain knickers makes me wonder if perhaps Charles Dickens was more right that Walt Disney’s music-makers; perhaps it’s nothing more than “a bit of cheese, a blot of mustard or a crumb of underdone potato” that is responsible for the odd nighttime flights of fancy.

Meanwhile, I continue to ponder if it’s possible, even in a state of unconsciousness, to enlarge the size of a washcloth into something approximating a burqa. Probably not, but it won’t stop me from trying!