Dreams

 

And by that I mean the thing which happens when we sleep, not the figurative sense of unfulfilled plans or ambitions, e.g. “Dreams I’ll Never See”…

My most recent memorable dream kind of melted the Pentagon with NYC for a strong 9/11 flavor, the Pentagon leading out to the ground/swamp underneath the New Jersey Turnpike – you know where it splits up just south of NYC and rises over the swamps by Meadowlands.  It was like the dream was playing fast and loose with NYC and Northern Virginia.  I can’t remember the plot, except the Turnpike somehow morphed into a two lane road.  Too bad we can’t record our dreams.

I’ve been blessed with a decent sleeping ability; I rarely get insomnia.  In fact, I rarely get jet lag, as my last few foreign trips were Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (EST + 2) and Bucharest, Romania (EST + 7) – which I conquered by simply staying up until bedtime local time.  As for insomnia, somehow I don’t have trouble sleeping when stressed out, even before a big trial, but every now and then it happens.  A shot of Jagermeister almost always gets the job done. 

When I was a kid, with a far more active imagination than I have now, I had nightmares.  Not all the time, but far more common than now, which is almost never.  The most recent nightmare I can recall, a few years ago, was that somehow I pushed my brother off a high ledge on a building, by accident, and he fell directly on his head, killing him instantly.  That was so messed up I woke up immediately.  My childhood nightmares usually involved ghosts and other supernatural creatures.  Axe murderers and such were not even on my radar of apprehension.  As an adult, my nightmares, rare as they are and noticeable by their rarity, generally involve close friends and relatives dying.  Back in school, the most common topic was missing or failing exams, and as a practicing lawyer it was missing deadlines or trials (“I know I’m supposed to be somewhere today….OOPS!”).

To make matters worse, on at least one occasion – when I was very young - I had a high fever and went delirious, which means hallucinating while wide awake – a nightmare you can’t escape just by waking up.  Thus the classic Universal logo from the 50s or 60s still hits me when I see it, as it had something to do with that unforgettable experience.  Bar none, that was the worst experience in that regard, because unlike a nightmare while you’re sleeping, you’re wide awake.  Years later, experiencing LSD and mushrooms voluntarily were a way of confronting this, and I’d describe the psychedelic experiences as effectively dreaming while you’re wide awake.  On lower doses you can simply close your eyes and vanish into a vast fantasy world which seems to last for years, and if you don’t like it, just open your eyes and you’re back in reality – although with some seriously distorted visual effects to liven things up. 

I’ve had a few erotically charged dreams, but not nearly as many as I might prefer.  A more recent one involved a former GF, so finally I had a dream about one of them.   “The names have been changed…to protect the guilty.”

When people I do know appear in my dreams, it’s like a random appearance, and they don’t necessarily act in character. In one particular dream, someone was injured, and my father (deceased for almost 20 years now but making a guest appearance in my dream) undertook to drive the victim to the hospital, but couldn’t find the place and just gave up, dumping the injured party on the sidewalk with the advice, “good luck”.  Highly out of character for my Dad, who would have called 911 at the very least, but most likely would have successfully delivered the patient to the ER.  This dream alone convinced me that the appearance of people we know is not meaningful or prophetic, but merely random. 

As such, I dream every night, most being fairly nonmemorable.  These dreams never come true, and I can imagine why.  That brings me to my theory, which I’ve yet to hear echoed by any doctor or psychiatrist.

If dreams seem random and nonsensical, it’s because they are nothing more than the brain’s way of washing itself while we sleep, clearing its cache of short term memory. after a day of stress, work, and having to think clearly from waking to sleeping.  It jumbles around our memories at random, concocting a series of events which have no plot or reason and bear superficial resemblance to our actual experiences.  None of this is even remotely prophetic or supernatural, nor is there any reason to believe it would be. – aside from wishful thinking.  I don’t relive past encounters, or see the future.  Most of the women I meet in dreams are women I’ve never met before, although some ex-GFs do make guest appearances from time to time as noted above, mostly at random.  Again, dreams are the mind’s way of washing itself.  If you can’t sleep, you can’t dream, and your mind starts to deteriorate.

There was an experiment done years ago, in which they kept the subjects awake for several days straight.  Before the experiment they tested the subjects on mental skills – adding and subtracting – and motor skills, shooting baskets.  This initial test acted as the baseline, the subjects were repeatedly tested over the next few days without sleep, and then given a full night’s rest, and tested again.  They found the motor skills didn’t suffer appreciably during the days without sleep, but the math test results showed a strong downturn.  And after the subjects could sleep again – 8 hours – they were back up to normal again.

Getting back to the LSD issue.  Albert Hofmann, who invented LSD, noticed after his first trip, that the day after, he had immense peace of mind and clarity of thought.  LSD effectively acts not only as “dreaming while wide awake”, but also several nights’ worth of dreaming all at once, depending on the dosage.  The connection between the two is much stronger than I believe is realized.   Note this this also applies to psilocybin, the active ingredient of psychedelic mushrooms, e.g. psilocybe cubensis.

Well, we study the subject every night, don’t we?