Just recently, a large plane plummeted from directly above me as I froze and desperately considered in which direction to flee the impending crash. But I had just seconds, and the passenger jet fluttered erratically. As sheer terror for the souls soon to perish took silver medal to self-preservation, I ran blindly from the fateful whining of displaced sky and the sputtering of failed engines. Quickly, though, I became covered in shadow-and then huge wings blotted the sun. I cowered and braced for the unthinkable. But those wings morphed into a ceiling fan, and that rushing air became the sound of the small noisemaker I never sleep without-a battery powered one that I always set on “gentle rain” (The heartbeat option creeps me out.). My jaw unclenched as I gasped for air and realized that, once again, my subconscious mind had awakened and spared me just in time. Spared me the fate of all those passengers by then strewn and mutilated within my gray matter.
I have no wish to decode that dream. And my mom advised, anyway, that the meaning of those subconscious videos should be taken in reverse. Whatever THAT means. But she even had a dream book that interpreted them in alphabetical order. I never got to the last item, having never dreamt of zebras. But the tattered page listing ‘”sex” took plenty of wear as I returned to it almost daily, if only to confirm that nocturnal obsession with Ann Margret (in coquettish “Viva Las Vegas” mode, with Elvis conveniently absent) still represented some “unfulfilled desire.” Gee, how insightful of them.
Ancient societies likewise sought to translate the meaning of dreams-and even produced elaborate manuals on the topic. Having no idea that the subconscious even existed, they saw sleeping thoughts as sacred messages from the gods. I fervently hope THEY had it wrong. Since, who wants the deities planning a Boeing drop smack onto their gourd?
Sigmund Freud might have other ideas about that descending aircraft. As the father of mind study, he had plenty of theories on dreams and introduced them to the burgeoning science of psychology. I remember reading someplace that the 19th century icon of couch inquisitions thought the slumbering brain sought to resolve emotional issues. But usually, I awaken just as conflicted as I was at bedtime.
Carl Jung, Siggie’s protege, (Just picture another bearded dude puffing enigmatically on a pipe.) would develop his own theory and not one that has aged well. Jung held that our sleeping brains pull images from some collective consciousness-the great mothership, I guess. I find that notion unsettling. It makes us seem like The Borg from Star Trek (those corpse-looking dudes with tubes in their necks). Jung also wrote that our deep-sleep brains seek desperately to communicate with our waking minds. That, I can relate to, as a guy who often mutters to himself.
While acknowledging that it can’t ascribe specific meanings to what we dream, contemporary science seems to believe that our subconscious minds simply feel called upon to process and make sense of brainwaves generated while we sleep. If that IS the case, I can only say, do better slumbering brain, because the content you’ve been churning out lately makes Beetlejuice (stupid movie) look like a pbs documentary. Research HAS determined that chemicals acting as neurotransmitters roll out fodder for these sleep experiences in a manner that may or may not be random. Great, glad they could clear all THAT up.
One (presumably fringe) sect of sleep study considers dreams to be what they term “threat rehearsals”-cosplay practice, in effect, at dealing with catastrophes. Awesome. At least when Batman (for some reason, always the Christian Bale version) goes rogue and comes to issue me a beatdown, I’ll have experience at spotting the Batmobile. I dream that a lot.
But why can’t my snoozing brain coach me up at something pleasurable? Like hitting the Powerball? Or watching Jeff Mayes, who stole my paper route in 5th grade, fail miserably to outrun a volcanic eruption? No pre-sleep mindset or external stimulus seems to determine what I dream. Except when my spouse cranks the thermostat up too high -a near-nightly occurrence, no matter WHAT season it is. In those cases, my snoring self pops up in the torrid Sahara-but hey, I’m just grateful it’s a dry heat.
Not that I don’t try transitioning my edgy, defensive, and fatalistic waking self into a mind frame more conducive to restful sleep. But when freaking Bob ROSS in the background leads only to dreams of Count Dracula stalking me on one of my hikes through Tomlinson Run (Actually, for full disclosure, he does seem oddly slow of foot-meaning the vampire, not he of “happy little trees.”), I tune in something even MORE serene on my bedroom tv. Walnut Grove, that idyllic place where pig-tailed Nelly Oleson passes for a villain, and Pa Ingalls just keeps churning out and adopting kids to stuff into that one-room cabin. Just my luck that last night’s episode (Little House actually has its own channel on Samsung Tv) featured Mary’s loss of sight-but the barrage of sheer compassion beamed out from Michael Landon’s face still gave me the warm fuzzies while I watched a child get stricken blind. Now THAT’S why I tuned in, baby! No matter, as my drifting off brain still somehow converted Mr. Edwards to that savage alien from “Predator.” Well, at least his wrist -laser kept jamming.
One type of dream that sleepologists (Decide for yourself if I made that word up.) assign you a fighting chance of controlling is the “lucid” kind. That’s when you know you’re dreaming and can safely plant a big smackaroo on the first hot person you encounter. You can also call BS when your house cat recites his store order in stuffy British accent. The supposed method, though, for conjuring that sort of dream involves multiple alarm clocks, chanting mantras as you go under, and generally, more self-control than I possess. So, I’ll just grab Puss in Boots a bag of those Little Friskies he keeps asking for. Even though he’s never set paw in England.
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