Monday, December 13, 2004
PowerDreaming
so tired today… out later than usual last night at a wonderful hanuka party up in the hills, filled with 12-year old cabernet and black muscat dessert wine, succulent tenderloins and roasted apples and fresh greens and all the latkes I could eat plus about one-and-a-half more… the upshot being that I slept this morning right through my “blogwriting” time, and have not been able to put the time together till now to share any thoughts, or at least none worth sharing with the general public. Let’s face it, the world is better off not knowing some of my thoughts.
In the meantime, since I’m so preoccupied with how freaking drowsy I am, here’s a little essay about dreaming. I don’t think I have already posted this, but if I’m wrong, at least I can mark it down to my brains feeling so darn mushy today.
*****
It’s one thing to remember a dream; another altogether to control one. Many are the nights I put myself to bed with enough residual solar energy to convince myself I could pick a dream to dream, and actually dream it - but it doesn’t seem to work that way very often. I get myself settled in amidst the bedclothes, and my mind, laser-focused only moments prior, goes fuzzy on me. My thoughts wander, from a decision to try to pick a dream to dream, to a motley variety of possible dreams, to remembering something that happened that day or that needs to happen tomorrow - and by then it’s a free-for-all, my brain tossing scattered bits of thought and fancy like so much undercooked pasta against the wall of my consciousness, until the bonds of Morpheus overtake me and I drift away to the land of Nod using some randomly-generated thought as a starting point for my dream. Rarely are these happenstance dreams memorable, and even less often are they remembered. I just throw them away each morning like so much unread junk mail. I know they’re precious, well-deep windows on my inner self, but really, I keep reading about other people’s dreams and they’re surreal, hilarious, sexy, exciting… my own dreams never seem to go anywhere interesting. As a result, I tend not to keep them around for very long.
My rejection of these happenstance dreams, my disappointment with my powerlessness over them, comes from a rather specific place: I clearly remember two dreams I dreamed a long time ago on purpose. In those dreams I didn’t control everything, but in each case I was able to make one critical decision that changed everything for the better. In the hopes of reviving this skill I’ll share my somnolent triumphs:
* I was very young; I’d just recently learned to read. As I fell asleep I envisioned a document unscrolling before my closed but seeing eyes. I wasn’t intentionally imagining it; it just appeared on the inside of my eyelids like the crawling prologue to an old movie. I lay there watching it as if I were in a theater, reading through the slowly unfurling text. The background was sepia, with slightly frayed and charred edges, as if it were an ancient parchment; the lettering was in an antique gothic typeface with red rubrics and black bodies. I don’t exactly recall what it all said but I do recall that I read it as it went along, read out to myself what it told me - which was a list of the various possible dreams I might dream that night. Each line of my dreamtext was a title, a theme, a choice of entertainment for the evening. I read through several options, waiting for a particularly intriguing selection to come up. When I eventually saw one I liked, I just resolved on it and the dream began, just as I’d chosen it. I don’t remember what choices had been available to me, nor the choice I made - but I do remember having a choice, and choosing. And that was all I really cared about anyway.
* I was 10 or 12, at the height of my proto-nerdal model-making phase. I had, at some previous point, built a replica of JFK’s PT-109 - a small boat, really, with barely any cabin to speak of, four torpedo tubes, and, as I recall my shoddily-constructed effigy, three propellers. I was dreaming, then, of piloting this boat through war-riven waters. The boat was in a warm ocean, but had been boarded and overrun by nazis. My crew was in peril. Their lives , my future, the future of the American Way and of my people were all at mortal risk. It was all up to me, somehow, and I was being chased around the boat by goons with lugers and potatomasher grenades. I ran from them but found myself cornered abaft. I figured I could swim to safety if I got overboard so I jumped - right over the stern, into waters being churned into foam by the propellers. As I dropped toward the boiling sea, I didn’t have to think twice: I knew that I’d never survive a dive anywhere near those propellers; I’d be sucked up and pureed like so many snouts at the scrapple factory. So I did the only rational thing: from my spot suspended in midair over the wake of my doughty craft, I jumped back on board, reversing course neatly above the water and touching down again on deck so that I could jump again - this time, over the side, vaulting the torp tube into safe waters, whence I was able to swim under the speeding boat, clamber up the other side, recapture my boat, and win the war for Democracy and Disney.
I don’t recall being able to do that kind of move since - recognizing the problem and fixing it despite the laws of physics. Not even when dreaming. I also don’t recall dreaming a scene with such big stakes again. Maybe the next time the free world depends on my making a smart choice during a dream, I’ll come through. In the meantime, I rather enjoy letting my dreams take me where they like to go, without my intercession or involvement. It’s a free ride, it’s very relaxing, and, as far as I recall, I enjoy the view. I just don’t quite recall what it’s of.
