Stanley Francis Baconstrip had just finished reading the sentence, “The discoveries of modern science have no doubt given their own verdict of opposing alternatives – of either the Buddha or the bomb, for instance – and it is up to each of us to decide which path to follow [1],” when the old tea kettle began its gurgling, pre-whistle throat clearing.
“Better get to it before it screams and wakes the missus,” he said to no one including himself, being the only one at the early morning kitchen table. “Don’t want to send any sirens into her dreams.” (more…)
I’ve recently become disappointed that none of the biographies I read devote any significant amount of time to the dream lives of their subjects. Considering we spend approximately 1/3 of our lives asleep, and much of that dreaming, that adds up to a considerable chunk of time. Granted, most dreams are forgotten by morning, and many of them appear to be little more than re-hashed if not twisted fodder from our waking hours, but I’d like to suggest that in order to get a true and complete picture of a person – a picture that allows us to really understand one another – peeking behind the curtain for an examination of the dreaming life is essential.
Dreams have inspired scientists and philosophers, artists and engineers, saints and politicians, probably even you and me at some point. They’ve been documented as providing lucid blueprints for some of our greatest discoveries. They’ve shone a light on our fears and anxieties, and uncovered feelings we never knew we had (and perhaps even created a few that we didn’t have). They’re a curious part of our existence, a unique playing ground for our imaginations and emotions…and possibly entire other parts of the Universe of which we’re unaware. They’re just too damn weird and common to be written off as insignificant, and like it or not, they are a large part of who you are.
So please, potentially famous readers. Keep a dream journal and maybe, when your story is told and sold in whatever may pass as a bookstore in the future, we’ll be blessed with a more complete picture of who you really were.
This month’s song is another random frequency experiment, but it felt like dreaming to me. (Up at the top, above the video.)
Several months ago, I had a dream that I was having a telephone conversation with the very funny comedienne Amy Poehler, the details of which are documented in this entry’s MP3.
It got me thinking again about the people that populate our dreams: usually they’re people we know, or occasionally celebrities of some sort, but many times people that aren’t familiar to us make appearances of varying degrees of note. Often I’m sure they’re huddled in the background, bit players in the performance, but sometimes they play a more dominant role – such as the unknown man who sold doughnuts in many of my childhood dreams. Paging Dr. Freud. Who are these people? (more…)
