Sweet Dreams

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Our Wednesday Fox asked, “Do you dream often? Do you remember your dreams?”

I honestly don’t know if I dream or not. When I wake up in the morning, I have absolutely no clue about what may have gone through my mind during the night. I do have memories from my high school and college days of waking up in a panic, having the sensation of falling and thinking I would be landing in a heap somewhere. But I never had any idea about where I was falling from, although I’ve read that dreams about falling could be related to stress (Pietrangelo, Ann. “What Do Dreams About Falling Mean?” Healthline, 12 Oct. 2020, https://www.healthline.com/health/dreams-about-falling).

Now, daydreams are another matter. I can tell you all sorts of stories about those, but I’ll limit myself to three. 

I remember a time in grade school when I needed a new winter coat. My parents took me to a department store, and I tried on several. There was one that made me feel elegant, like the well-dressed women in the movies that we watched on our little black and white TV. I buttoned up the coat and stood in front of the triple mirror, twirling this way and that, loving the way the coat made me look and feel like a grown-up. The fantasy ended when my dad said, “Okay, Miss Movie Star. Is that the coat you want?”

My daughters were quite active in school (I guess I sort of encouraged that). Two of them belonged to the marching band, and I kept busy with other parent volunteers, sewing color guard costumes and flags. One day I was sewing costumes in the high school cafeteria and decided to buy something to drink. I went to the vending machine and put some money in. As I listened to the coins fall and watched the mechanisms move to deliver my drink selection, my mind inexplicably conjured a vision of a tiny person inside the machine, running up and down and all around, collecting the money and releasing the correct bottle. Weird, I know. But for some reason, that thought kept me entertained long enough that my daughter tapped me on the shoulder and said, “My friends told me you’ve been standing here for a long time and I’d better check to make sure you’re okay.”

A few years later, when my youngest daughter was in high school, her choir traveled to Washington, DC to sing at the National Cathedral and Mount Vernon and to take part in the celebration of the new WWII memorial. The four-day trip included several tours, and one particular tour guide lost my interest with his rambling narrative that didn’t seem relevant to what he was showing us. I wandered off to the back of the crowd and happened to spot several ants crawling up and down a tree. The tour guide’s nasal twang faded away as I watched one industrious ant crawl along the ridges in the bark going steadily upward. How high would he go? What was he after? Silently, I cheered him on, until my daughter appeared behind me. “Mom, stop staring at that tree. Everyone thinks you’re nuts.”

Yeah, my daydreams usually ended with someone else telling me how strange I was acting. Nowadays I daydream in front of my laptop, and nobody minds. And if I write fast enough, I’ll remember what I dreamed up.

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