In Dreams

(Please press "PLAY" and let the song run while you read this)

Two of my blogger friends, David and Hal recently both posted about strange dreams they've had. David's was bizarre, rich fodder for the amateur or professional psychiologist. I can't even begin to describe it, but you can read about it here. Hal's dream was only slightly less odd, in that he was dreaming about two butchers he used to know; dreaming about men with big cleavers in other words. Don't ask me; my name ain't Doctor Freud.

I read Hal's post this evening, but I'd been thinking about dreams since this morning. Thinking about them as in - I never remember them. Never. Friends often regale me with detailed (and lurid and vivid) accounts of their dreams - dreams full of real people and conversations and complicated plot twists and...and I'm thinking, How do they remember these things? I know why they're telling me, and I'm happy to listen, albeit somewhat jealously. But I think people read too much into their dreams. Dreaming may merely be the state in which our brains get to cut loose without the constraints of dragging around our physical bodies.

I know that I do dream. When I wake up, I sometimes am still "in" the dream for a few seconds. And if I consciously try to think about it I can sometimes recall a snippet. But usually I can't even do that. The moment my attention is diverted - like thinking about how badly I have to pee, the dream evaporates...disappears faster than a tab of acid at the Burning Man festival. And then no matter how hard I try, I can't get it back.

I'm pretty sure I don't have nightmares. I always sleep well and wake up in a good mood. The key, I think, is that I routinely get about six hours of sleep, as I've written/whined about previously. For some reason I cannot stay asleep for longer than that. If I go to bed at ten p.m. I'm up at four. I go to bed at midnight and I'll be up at six. Maybe I just don't have time to dream.

I also think that my dreams occur in the very last few seconds of sleep - at least with me. For some reason, and don't quote me on this, I think that a whole big, long, involved dream - something that would take a very long time to recount - can happen in the blink of an eye. I think this because if I doze off for a just bit, as I did on an airline flight this morning, I wake up knowing that I was dreaming; I just can't remember about what.

I wonder why I can't access my dreams? I really wish I could. Maybe they'd be as spooky or strange as David and Hal's. Then again, I'm probably glad I can't. Ah well, don't want to dwell too much on the subject. It's almost midnight and I have to be up at six a.m.