In Dreams

A candy-colored clown they call the sandmanTiptoes to my room every nightJust to sprinkle stardust and to whisper "Go to sleep. Everything is all right."
A few weeks ago friend Julie Weissman-Markovitz put out a call for anyone who knew anything about dream interpretation. Though not an expert, I answered the call based on my first year back in seminary school when the assignment of one course was to journal your dreams from the night before each day. The course had the rather hokey title of "Life as Personal", but Leighton McCutcheon, the instructor, went way beyond the hokiness to make it one of the best courses in my entire academic life. Leighton, by the way, secured his place in my teacher pantheon by being the one who introduced me to the guru of the Nobby Works, Norman O. Brown. Leighton, like Brown, girded his teaching with a dazzling blend of Christ, Marx and Freud. Needless to say, our dream interpretations relied heavily on reading symbols. Over time one could see the recurrence of symbols--phallic or not--that played a specific part within the context of dreams. We also made note of recurring dreams themselves. I can’t recall how many times a dream would recur to make for a notable pattern, but even 2-3 times in an academic year was something. I had one such recurring dream:

I was waking up in the house we lived in during my boyhood. In the dream I am pre-adolescent and have awakened to the exciting realization that this day is naked day…that everyone is going out into the world without clothes. Fortunately my dream skips over any encounters with my parents that day and takes my onto the street where we lived walking toward the corner of Russell and Main where the Midnight Spa stood. It was a familiar gathering spot for what were called in the day “hoods”—black leather jackets with collars up, greased back hair combed in the back to a DA (duck ass). I am strolling down the street just as proud and liberated as can be in all my splendid nakedness until I get to the corner and see all the hoods there dressed up in their imposing dark finery. They laugh when they see me, form a circle around me, and mock me into shame about my nakedness. End of dream.

I have had that dream or slight variations on it many times since, so I take it as a fairly reliable glimpse into my subconscious view of life, and there are a couple of interpretations. It could speak to my core naiveté…or exhibitionism. It could express a desire to want to go naked…i. e. open and honest…into the world. It could also reflect my strong affinity for the story of Genesis, which climaxes with Adam being shamed by his own body.Although I don’t keep a dream journal any longer, it is not at all unusual for Lorna and me to begin the day discussing my previous night’s dreams. Because she’s been with me and at this for so long, she’s really quite good at reading them. Recently I had four of my more memorable ones. One of them Lorna refused to interpret out of concern that it would be too upsetting for me. I offer it and the others here with an open invitation for readers to join me in interpretation:

In the first I am visiting my mother in a home rather than hospital environment on her deathbed (Mom died in 2017). She has tubes connected to her, but is clearly awake, yet she refuses to acknowledge me. Charlize Theron comes in and invites me into the adjoining room. I follow her into her room. She points to her phone…a landline clunker sitting on an end table…and says that maybe if I call my mother she’ll answer. I call. No answer. I let it ring…and light! The phone blinks red with every ring. Finally I give up and hang up. Charlize pointedly asks, “Why did you do that?” I answer, “Because she wasn’t picking up.” Charlize says, “So how many chances do you think your mother should get to pick up?” My dream moves in for a close-up of Charlize…her face is now painted mime white, her eyes become pinkish with tears, her head is surrounded by a halo of white lilies. End of dream.

A few critical background details are probably necessary for this one. Oldest daughter Meagan once worked with Charlize, and we had somewhat of a social relationship with her, so this is not a case of movie star idolization going on here. It’s more likely, as my reading of dreams has shown over the years, that Charlize is a stand-in for Meagan. I find this often happens in dreams when your subconscious is trying to soften the message. Given that Meagan and her sister Gillian have both communicated recently in their indirect and direct ways respectively that I should be calling them more often, that’s where I go with this one. But this is the one Lorna was protecting me from, so maybe it’s worse.

In the second dream, I’m shopping in Costco, looking over books, when the man next to me has a seizure and dies. I am charged with his murder. The cop making the charge is played by Ryan Rodriquez, our plumber with whom we’ve done a lot of expensive business lately and have more pending. He tells me I have a year to clear my name. In dreamtime, the year quickly passes, and I show up at police headquarters to turn myself in. Ryan is beside himself. He can’t believe I had a year and didn’t come up with any defense for myself. I respond, “No, I didn’t. If you believe I killed that man, then there’s nothing I can do or say to make you see that I’m innocent. You might as well lock me up.” End of dream.

This one cuts to a key character trait of mine…I am usually loathe to explain or defend myself when I believe that my innocence of a wrongdoing should be apparent to anyone who really knows me. Oddly this speaks to my refusal to use emojis when I’m cracking wise on social media. My feeling has always been that if you don’t know me well enough to know when I’m joking then you really don’t know me. It’s a bit arrogant, I know…I’m putting a burden on virtually hundreds of unknown others to know what I refer to as the Gestalt of Dan. 

The third dream occurred when Lorna had gone to spend the night with a friend. I was dreaming that someone had invaded the house. I could hear him making his way through doors, down halls and upstairs. I struggled to overcome my panic and make my way to the door where I had my Second Amendment baseball bat for protection. I took up the bat and made my way out of the bedroom and down the stairs. I saw no one, but heard increasingly loud noise coming from outside. I stepped out where I found our large backyard and swimming pool filled with south of the border immigrants frolicking. A benign Border Patrol agent was there overseeing it all. He turned to me and said, “They’re okay. Just having fun.” I felt an immediate sense of relief and went back inside to bed. End of dream. 

Whoa, baby! Is that not the ultimate liberal dream? I don’t know. I wouldn’t really want my home overrun by immigrants…nor would I want it overrun by hordes of the white privileged…and surely not by mad MAGA hatters. So I’m not entirely sure what to make of this one, except what it might say about the difference between the fear of facing one intruder alone and hosting a party under watchful supervision of lawful authority. My home is probably a stand-in for the country and this is a dreamy projection of my utopia.    

Finally, a classic--oversleeping for the final exam. In this variation on what may be one of the most universal dreams, I’ve been called in to serve as a substitute teacher in a school where daughter Gillian teaches. I spent a few very excruciating years as a sub, so this one is firmly grounded in the reality of my life…though thankfully my past life. My sub schedule begins with a free period, which I spend being really free…reading the news, writing freelance, checking in on the scores. With 10 minutes to go before my first real class, Gillian comes by to see how I’m doing. I tell her I’m doing fine…that I have this handy brochure they gave me to get me through the day. I open it to show her, and the first thing I notice is the name of a sister school where I realize I was also supposed to be subbing that day as well but forgot. Then I see the detailed lesson plans they’ve left for me for the classes to come. They appear in small, dense, italic type. In addition they begin with classes in chemistry and math, my worst areas of proficiency. But even my strengths, history and lit, are threatened. In history I’m supposed to teach about Thomas Hart Benton’s Missouri Mural, and the literature plan is dedicated to an hour on Chaucer, who I neither like nor know well enough to teach for even 5 minutes. I go into full panic mode. I cannot do any of this, I tell my daughter (!!!). I head off to tell the principal that he's going to have to find another sub. But when I see him through a window he’s on the phone where I believe he's just learning that I flaked on another job that very morning. I stand there paralyzed in what is for me the closest my dream life ever gets to a nightmare. And whenever I’m confronted with a nightmare, I usually manage to tell myself, “This is just a dream. Wake up and it’ll all be over.” 

Which is what I did…and it was.Just sprinkle stardust and whisper"Wake up. Everything is all right."