A Funny Dream

Yesterday was one of those frustrating days when I simply couldn’t get to my computer to write on my blog. So this post comes a day late, with my apologies. (And by the way, my experience yesterday was an interesting waking dream which I’ll address soon on this blog.)

Funny dreams

The first job of any dream is to present itself in such a way that the dreamer remembers it from the depths of sleep all the way into full waking consciousness. This happens far less frequently than one might imagine. Dreamers often relate a tale similar to this: “I had this really amazing dream, and I remembered it perfectly when I started to wake up in the morning. So as I was lying in bed, I kept repeating it to myself because I know how easy it is to forget dreams. I repeated it when I rolled over. Then I repeated it once more when I opened my eyes. And just to be sure, I went over it one final time just before I sat up in bed. By now, I was sure I had it in my memory. But 10 minutes later, when I was brushing my teeth, I could not remember it to save my life.”

That is why, when a dream message is really important, dreams tend to express themselves in shocking imagery. Those are the dreams that leave such a strong impression—usually unsettling or frightening—that we, as dreamers, will simply not forget them under any circumstances.

But scary dreams are not the only ones that get our attention. It is less common, but dreams also use humor as a way of making an important impression. Absurdist imagery sometimes works as well as unnerving, foreboding dream plots.

For the dream I will analyze this week I am going back into my archives of dreams to examine one of my favorites. It is one I included in my book, Always Dreaming, although I did so in passing, and did not analyze it. So it’s due for some attention. This dream was related to me about ten years ago by a close friend.

A funny dream

I don’t remember the whole dream, but what I do remember seems so weird, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. In my dream, I was sitting in my living room worried about the drought that we seemed to be having. I remember thinking that it wasn’t good for the crops, and it could even mean water rationing. I was saying to myself, we need to make it rain so I need to do a rain dance. I got up, went into my kitchen and started mixing up a huge bowl of pancake batter. Then I brought the bowl and a ladle back into the living room and started hurling pancake batter onto the ceiling with the ladle. And I guess that was the rain dance. I woke up laughing because the whole dream was so ridiculous.

Stay tuned!

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