Perchance to Dream

I love dreams. The prospect of dreaming is one of the high points of my going to bed.

Last night I woke up with a topic for a fantastic blog, and had the perfect title: “Whither Luxembourg?” It was to be a lighthearted piece (and, as I recall, actually had me chuckling) speculating on how, if people can’t find the United States on a map, they could ever be expected to find Luxembourg…let alone Andorra…and that how, since no one could find them, they in fact ceased to exist, and no one noticed.

As with all my dreams, it had deeply profound undertones, though I can seldom recall exactly what they were.

The study of dreams is a fascinating one, though it does have the element of removing petals from a rose to find out what makes the rose beautiful. To me, dreaming is vaguely like writing without the use of the fingers—and totally free of the confines of logic. When I write, I tell you stories. When I dream, I tell myself stories.

I’m pretty sure I’ve done a blog on dreams before; I’ve reached the point where after a couple years of blogs there is bound to be some repetition, so I hope you’ll excuse me if I say some of the same things I’ve said before. (Though if I can’t remember them, how can I expect you to?)

At any rate, I am blessed that I cannot remember the last time I had a nightmare, though occasionally a disturbing one will crop up. On a scale of 1-10, the vast majority of my dreams fall into the 7-and-above range. Dreams of flying, in one form are another, are my favorite, but the very best, most euphoric dreams of all are those happy dreams which I swear are reality. Leaping off a cliff and soaring through forested canyons and knowing…knowing…that I really, really am flying is nothing short of euphoric.

They say that the fact that one tends to dream just before waking up makes it seem as though one has been dreaming longer than actually is the case. But it does seem to me that I spend much of the night dreaming.

Perhaps it is because I am a writer that my dreams are so varied, and so vivid. I dream in dream-logical stories, I usually dream in color, I have dreamt full musicals with original choreography and score and a cast of hundreds, and on occasion I dream…and this is very difficult to explain…in concepts. I have dreamed in weights and in reams of paper and in cardboard boxes instead of word-thoughts. Interesting, but confusing and not really all that much fun.

Though I seldom dream about my parents or those people whose loss I so frequently bewail here in my blogs, when I do dream of them it is wonderful because the wall of knowing they are dead comes completely down. So when Dad walks into the kitchen in a dream, or Mom appears in some setting, doing something, it’s as simple as that. Dad is walking into the kitchen; Mom is wherever she appears, doing whatever it is she is doing. No need for grief or a sense of loss. Everything is fine.

And that for me is what dreams are…assurance that things are fine, and that all I have to do is lie back, relax, and enjoy them. I hope they are the same for you.

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