Memories of Future Dreams

[gurdonark]

Last night I was so tired I fell into a deep sleep quite early in the evening. Lately I notice that I remember my dreams. It really doesn't matter outside my own thoughts what is contained in my dreams, other than perhaps to say that I do not get to fly, do not have to fail an examination for which I had failed to study, and do not get to spend amorous moments with complete strangers I've seen on the movie screen. I used to read materials on lucid dreaming sometimes--the notion that one can interact with one's dreams directly. The theory, if my grocery store checkout booklet was any guide, is that one can record one's dreams, and ultimately become a participant in one's dreams, through some sleeping/conscious effort to realize that one is having a dream, and then re-direct it. This idea of "let's take Manhattan--in our dreams!" is appealing. Perhaps dreams could be some really exotic nightly cable television show, which, unlike the Sopranos, one does not have to pay the HBO premium channel fee to obtain. If I controlled my dreams, things might be different--in my dreams. I might be able to use the preternatural powers of the dreaming world to explore my inner workings. My own feeling is that this whole idea is a bit like X-Ray Spex. They look cool in back of the comic book, but you really don't see the bones. On the the other hand, maybe it's more like another back of the comic standby, the 224 piece Revolutionary War soldiers. When we finally, after years of longing, paid our meager fortune to acquire this, we did indeed receive 224 British and American revolutionary war soldiers. They were all, however, a fraction of the "normal" cowboy/Indian/WW II size. They were a bit like that 18 inch high model of Stonehenge in "This is Spinal Tap", except they were more like 18 microns high. We had a lot of fun with those soldiers, though, and maybe controlling one's dream would be a lot of fun, too, even if it was only 18 inch Stonehenge fun. I tend to think, though, that dreams should run wild and free, unchecked and indecipherable.

But if you could take control of your dreams, and send them in the directions you wish to go, where would you go? What would you do? After the newness of flying and Charlize Theron (or Toby McGuire) and telling off that football player from 10th grade wore off, what would you like to learn from your inner psyche then?