The stuff of dreams
When I’m under psychological stress, I have adventure dreams that play out like complicated Hollywood thrillers.
I recently had one where a version of me (played by Keira Knightley), along with my trusty band of cohorts, sought to conquer a series of trials so we could level up to a plane of existence that was free from attack by mythical beasts.
We were allowed to plant artifacts that might aid in our attempts to beat our current level. We purchased these aids—a backpack filled with weapons, a staff imbued with magical powers—in an outdoor market where tattooed brigands sold dusty leather-bound books and ancient vials from the dark corners of their canvas tents.
Complicated? Yes. Better than the classic stress dream where you find yourself standing naked in front of a crowd that expects you to give a speech you’ve failed to memorize? Decidedly.
I apologize that in times of psychological smooth-sailing, my most memorable dreams involve shopping. I enter a dimly lit storefront, expecting to encounter a curio shop filled with dusty leather-bound books and ancient vials. Instead I find carousels overflowing with all the items I need, at more than 70 percent off. In my defense, I immediately tell others, so they can share the great deals, too. I’m like an ethereal influencer.
These bargain shops don’t resemble anything in real life, but they remain fixed in my subconscious so that I unexpectedly find myself visiting the same ones in dreams occurring years apart. I wish my mental roadmaps led to revelations that could solve our most perplexing societal problems. As it is, I can only recommend a good price for an attractive set of nonexistent hand towels.
Do you ever have the dream where you create something astounding and resolve to recall it upon awakening? As a kid, I once dreamt that I was leaning on a rafter near the roof of our barn, playing a song on the guitar—with my feet. In my defense, it took both hands to hold myself steady on that rafter. When dream logic suddenly demanded that I play a guitar suspended on wires, my feet were the only option left to me.
The melody my feet created was haunting. In my half-lucid state, I resolved to remember it. Of course, it evaporated the moment I awakened and is now lost to time, as Shangri-La is lost in the untraceable valleys of the Himalayas.
As for nightmares, my childhood editions involved gross-out stuff. In one, our kitchen floor was covered in a seething mass of black ticks. I was duty-bound to cross the floor and get to the kitchen sink, so I ran as fast as I could, feeling the tiny tick bodies squirming against the bottoms of my bare feet the whole way.
In another, I had to swim across a small ocean bay. Below me, fish of unknown size swam just out of reach, their dorsal fins brushing against me while I freestyled at a pace that would have drawn an admiring whistle from Michael Phelps.
For the tick dream, I blame “Them!” the 1954 creature film in which giant ants brandish grown men in their evil pincers. For the fish, I have no idea. “Jaws” hadn’t been written. Documentaries about crazy Oklahomans noodling catfish hadn’t aired. Maybe it was something I saw on a particularly harrowing episode of “Flipper.”
I don’t know what dreams inhabit your hours of repose. I hope they’re pleasant and leave you feeling refreshed in the morning.
If ever your dreams involve a guitarist in some dusty curio shop, performing an acoustic set with her toes, would you commit the melody to memory and call me up to hum a few bars? That one still haunts me.