Sic Semper Tyrannis

Only in Dreams

So, the more I think about it, the more I wonder. What exactly are dreams? My gut tells me that it’s just your mind re-shuffling all of the memory-containing brain-juice, kind of like those little water-filled plastic games that you used to push the buttons on and make fish swim and then shake up to start over. In my mind’s eye, your brain is kind of “reset” every night like a snow globe, but sometimes one of the little guys up there forgets to tie off the line of communication that connects all of those reshuffling images to your awareness. And so, what should be a behind-the-scenes process becomes a strange Dadaist play performed in the theater of your skull.

But what business does my brain have with images like I discussed in that last post? I’ve been in a grand total of two actual plays in my life and neither was within the last fifteen years. And never was I scrambling around backstage, looking desperately for a script. So, where is my brain getting all of these ideas? They’re not memories of anything existing in reality or anything that once existed. Maybe my unconscious is a lot more creative than I ever knew.

And how did “wishes” and “hopes” ever get mixed up with “dreams?” Some person might say, “my dream is to be an architect,” or “my dream is to get paid to lay on the beach.” Did these scenarios ever actually play themselves out while they slumbered? Man, I know that my “hopes” and “wishes” are usually the exact opposite of my dreams. I really would never hope to live in the surrealistic, Picasso-world of my dreams: overflowing urinals because I can’t stop peeing, or trying to fight somebody but my punches move in slow-motion as if I was underwater, or running away from giant rabbits on a military-fortified island. No, I’ll take my waking, walking-around world any day, thank you very much.

Somebody once said, “All men are great in their dreams.” My response to that? “Enh. Not so much.”

posted by Mike @ 2:16 PM