Dreams and Nightmares
Night after night my friendly pet tiger turned into a menace and chased me all over the neighborhood. One second he'd be purring contentedly on the sofa and the next he'd be ready to eat me for supper. My dream self is in superb physical shape, unlike my waking self, so I was always able to escape by the barest of margins using fancy footwork and dreamy logic. I'd wake up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding, terror coursing through my veins.
I've never been one to believe that dreams have secret meanings, but as the dreams grew more frantic and the tiger's teeth came closer and closer to putting a quick end to my dream self, I decided something had to be done. Taking sleeping pills didn't help. They just seemed to ramp up the intensity. Working out till I was beyond exhausted didn't chase away the tiger. Reading dream analysis sites on the web provided no insight.
It was time to turn to the big guns, someone who might actually have a clue what my inner psyche was trying to tell me. My friend loves analyzing dreams, so I shot off a quick e-mail and had my answer in minutes.
The tiger was my upcoming wedding. I loved it and wanted it, but the planning was chasing me around like a tiger, ready to consume my sanity.
So simple! Why didn't I think of that?
That night the tiger was no where to be found and I was able to get back to my regularly scheduled sleep program--preferably something with a little smoochy smoochy and Superman style flying.
I suppose all the psychologists are right--dreams really are used by our brains to process our daily activities.
In general, I don't like to share my dreams. I often have vivid, plot driven dreams that put the latest dreck out of Hollywood to shame. I luxuriate in the experiences afforded to me in my dreams, especially the flying. I love my dream body, a blonde bombshell that always looks put together. I even enjoy the occasional nightmare because my dream self is usually a super-hero crime fighter who can eventually defeat the toughest monster using only her wits and instincts. Though none of these things are real, sharing them would take away a little of the magic. If I told people, they would know what I really wanted to be--beautiful, smart, and resourceful. Writing it down seems silly since that's what most people want, but the creations of my sleeping mind seem intimately personal. Sharing them would invite people into the deepest depths of my soul.
And let's face it. Who wants to hear all the little details of a half-remembered dream that makes no sense upon waking?
In this issue we've brought you a collection of personal essays dedicated to dreams and nightmares. Rather than writing about our night dreams, something that would probably bore the socks off most of our readers, we've mostly written about our waking dreams and nightmares. Our articles talk about hope and despair, and explore how quickly one can turn into the other. I hope you'll enjoy these intimate insights into our contributors' lives.
This issue also contains some very excellent poetry and prose, along with our normal book reviews and other columns. I love all our columns, but this month I am particularly fond of Mama Mia!, perhaps because it focuses on the particular challenges of being a boy-mama.