I distinctly remember dreaming about talking to a credit card company on the phone and explaining why I missed a payment last month. This really sucks. Michael Swanwick dreams about writing the perfect paragraph and I dream about explaining myself to my creditors.
How does a person go about dreaming about what they want to do for real? I mean, I recognize that my dreams are all about what's stressing me out at the moment. Bills, money, and how to make enough of the second to pay all the first. I get that.
What I want my dreams to reflect are my hopes, not my fears. How do I make that happen?
It's probably got somehting to do with believing that my dreams are under my control and not something separate from me, something that happens without my active participation. Dreams are something that I've always thought of as uncontrolled longings. Things that I don't know anything about in advance. Isn't that funny? I mean, they're my dreams, right? Who should know better than me what they're going to be?
But you're talking to someone who willfully ignores a lot of what she worries about, so those worries come out when I'm sleeping, when my guard is down, when my brain has gone loose.
Dreams. It's such a beautiful word. I should be able to enjoy them. Controlling a word like that seems wrong somehow. Dreams should be free to float around and touch you here and there and tickle you in places that are unexpected but nice. Dreams should be mysterious but in a good way, opaque like heavy cream, but rich with possibilities.
3 comments:
Ordinarily, I wouldn't admit to having run an ego-search. But I came across your post and I have an answer to your question. Google "lucid dreaming" and you'll find a technique for dictating the general trend of your dreams.
It doesn't work as well as its adherents claim. But I've tried it myself, and it works roughly fifty percent of the time.
Good dreaming! I hope yours are even more rewarding than mine.
Thanks for your comments. My husband and I are big fans of your writing and we've been enjoying "Cigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures". I'm adding "lucid dreaming" to my to-do list. It's right after "learn to use pastels" and "cook something everyone in my house will eat". --Marie
Marie, I feel your pain. I find my dreams taking me to the same worksite every month or so, where I'm supposed to catch up on a job that's years overdue, and I have no idea where I left off or what I'm supposed to be doing... and of course I'm dressed in slippers, and have no tools.
In the early '70s I was a janitor at my old high school, and I had nightmares about that for 3 decades. I know this is all stress (and job) related.
But every now and then I can pick up my feet and fly. And the coolest thing was a couple weeks ago when it was REALLY windy, and as I was crossing the street I just knew that if I spread my arms and jumped up I could sail for 20 yards and never touch the concrete. I jumped, and for one instant I was in my dreams, flying. (It didn't last an inch.)
Mark
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