Dreams Are Made of Thiz

I love to dream.

Sometimes my dreams are so vivid that I remember everything about them when I wake up.  Sometimes they are frightening, sometimes sensual, sometimes sad.  Most of the time they seem sensible while they are happening.  I awaken, and quickly write down what I remember.  In the morning I will read it, and it says something like "plums are pink" or other nonsense.

I have a couple of recurring dreams.  One of them has a big dining room with at least a hundred tables, all covered in white cloths.  They have votives in silver holders.  There are windows with sheer white ruffled curtains all around.  The sun is streaming in.  The room reminds me of the department store dining room in the original "Miracle on 34th Street" where Kris Kringle is having lunch with the young wanna-be Santa.  Nothing ever happens there.   In the second one, I am crying and reaching for someone who is not there.  I don't know why I am crying, nor for whom I am reaching.

I have had dreams that revealed solutions, dreams that made clear my private fears.  There are dreams of longing for secret treasures and disjointed ones with fairy- like creatures and trolls.  Sometimes I wake up laughing, sometimes sobbing.  I have read book after book to interpret my dreams, but I have never found anything definitive.

What fascinates me is that I've been told we can control our dreams.  Why would I want to?  Perhaps if I was prone to nightmares I would feel differently.  My dreams take me to places I have never been.  They allow me to sit on clouds, to walk in jungles, to visit other stars.  I can see an Amazon village after watching a National Geographic special or have a ...uh...date with Sean Connery.  I travel by thought, or by light to another world. 

Dreams bring back the people I miss. We go to our old camp, or to Niagara Falls.  I sit at the Thanksgiving table with much-loved parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.  My grown children and their children are there, too, to share the feast.  The food looks good, too.  Please, God, don't let me waken yet, not yet.

My mother and grandmother frequently had dreams of the future.  Would I want that gift?  Only if it was just lottery numbers, thank you.

Last night I dreamed we were dancing to the Righteous Brothers.  The room was lit with candles and I thought I smelled roses.  A rush of water swept away the band and extinguished the candles.  I was left alone in the dim light with a being of indeterminate gender.  We felt our way to a bench, a wrought iron one like the one in my backyard that had belonged to my parents.  I sat there stupidly, waiting for what, I don't know.   When I awoke, I concentrated hard on every second of that dream...It left me uneasy.

Whether or not I believe in the predictions of dreams is irrelevant.  What I do believe is that dreams are an amazing mix of our subconscious and conscious set free for a few hours at a time.  They bring to the forefront the stuff that our busy  daytime brains have rejected.  Bits and pieces of the everyday world blend with fantasy.  Anything can happen.

Pay attention to your dreams.  You might learn something about yourself.