The Dreamer and the Dream

The Dreamer and the Dream

Even after all these years of dreaming I am still dumbfounded by the intricacy and originality of the "props" that lie scattered across the dream stage. One of my dreams, for instance, featured a carefully crafted letter from a past love which included a map of the Pacific Coast near Seattle with a cardboard sailing ship that slowly sailed south by southwest as I lifted the page.

It was so clever that I wondered out loud "how did she do that?" and turned over the page to discover a small slit made rigid with a careful application of black wax. The ship was attached by a pin which passed through the slot; the pin had a small black plastic cap that kept it in place. The mechanism was crafted so that the force of gravity caused a stately procession of the ship shortly after the page was lifted.

So that's how the letter worked, but how did the dream itself work? I won't ask what it "means," but, in general, how do dreams do what they do? Are there any patterns we can detect? If I could turn my dream over what kind of pins and slots would I find?

The basic pattern I sense is a dichotomy, two distinct and often opposing forces: the dreamer and the dream.

The dreamer is like a hobbled version of my waking "self." Perspectives in a dream often shift in bizarre ways - one minute I am watching a movie, the next I am in the movie, first as one character then as another - but there is generally a "me" in the dream. When people describe dreams they say "I did this. Then I saw that." Despite all the shifting imagery we perceive ourselves as being "in" the dream.

But the me in the dream is different from the me I experience in waking life. For one thing, I can't seem to think clearly in dreams. I've had dreams in which I struggle at great length with some simple mathematical problem; upon waking the answer is obvious. I sometimes try to take notes in my dreams but to no avail: the dream "me" cannot read. (I can "pretend read", that is, I can look at a newspaper or letter and seem to read a story, but I'm not actually seeing the words; even if I try to write I cannot see the actual words I've written.