Dream Journal of a Plague Month
By David Corbett | April 10, 2020 |
First Dream: I’m checking into a Las Vegas hotel, only to learn from the man at the desk that the conference I’m in town to attend has been canceled due to the pandemic. He arranges to have a cab take me to the train station, so I can return home.
On the way, the cabbie—a plump, jovial middle-aged man in a snap-brim cap—informs me that ironically the train station is located in the same casino where the canceled convention was going to be held. Meanwhile, the streets appear quite empty, conforming to news reports that Vegas has become “a ghost town.”
I enter the casino’s daytime restaurant and bar, an expansive room empty except for staff and several large-screen TVs, and sit with my carryon rolly. For whatever reason, I’m under the impression that someone will come and tell me where to catch the train. A considerable amount of time passes before I realize this isn’t going to happen, and I have to rush through the casino to find the train.
I ultimately see the platform on the far side of a giant glass wall, but can’t figure out how to get to it. The ramps leading to the platform are all on the far side of the glass.
As this is taking place, more and more people begin to filter into the casino, despite the pandemic. I have to work my way through the growing crowds to find, at last, the stairway to the train platform. But I get there just as the train is pulling away.
I head back into the casino, wondering what to do next, dragging my carryon behind me. The place is now conspicuously busy, if not exactly jam-packed, and there are hundreds of people out on the streets, smiling, laughing, enjoying themselves. Yes, some of the gamblers are Asian, but by no means all. In fact, they seem to be a distinct minority of those at the slots and tables.
The poet Robert Bly, during his readings in the 1980s, often remarked that the poet is like the Biblical character of Joseph, who “left the house of his father and learned to interpret dreams.” More prosaically, but no less insightfully, the crime-horror-fantasy writer Alexandra Sokoloff once noted that, as a writer, “If you’re not keeping a dream journal, you’re working too hard.”
The fact that the coronavirus has prompted increased levels of dread has not gone unnoticed—with the paradoxical result that some individuals already suffering from anxiety and/or depression have actually found their symptoms improve, as the outer world has begun to conform more reliably to their darker internal worlds. (For more on this, see Laura Bradley’s April 6th piece in The Daily Beast.)
“If you’re not keeping a dream journal, you’re working too hard.” –Alexandra Sokoloff
The effect on our dreams has not gone unreported, either. Take this piece from the blog IFLScience, Having Weird Dreams Since The Pandemic Began? You’re Not Alone, which notes that in stressful times we tend to have interrupted sleep, which not only amplifies the stress but increases the likelihood of negative dream content.
(Note: Our dogs have been getting us up in the middle of the night as well—maybe they’re also feeling the stress, or sensing our stress. Then again, maybe they’re just miserable little devils who refuse to take full advantage of our sending them outside one last time before bed—they who get to sleep all damn day! But I digress.)
Ironically, it’s precisely interruptions that tend to make us remember our dreams, so it’s no surprise I’ve not only been having curious dreams, but I’ve been remembering them more than usual.
But my point here is not just to share the weirdness. There’s a writing issue to be pondered (he says ponderously).
Remembering our dreams reacquaints us with the economy of symbols, the way they pack so much meaning into a visual image without the need for belabored explanation. And dreams also seem not just more creative but at times almost ingenious in discovering a unique, visual, or symbolic rendering of a complex idea.
In the dream recounted above, for example, the choice of Vegas as a backdrop says so much without having to make it explicit. And the fact that it now is a “ghost town,” as an article I read before having this dream described it, conveys elegantly that the people who remain are gambling with their lives, if they’re not already phantoms of a sort. The train lying beyond a glass wall is one of those poignant dream images conveying both that something is easily within reach and at the same time inaccessible. And does the train leaving the station just as I figure out how to reach it mean I’m just “unlucky,” or am I perhaps already dead?
The fact that these questions remain unanswered underscores how imagery intrinsically conjures tension, because tension is created most effectively by simply asking a question and withholding the answer.
Tension is created most effectively by simply asking a question and withholding the answer.
For literary examples, consider Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter, Gatsby’s green light, Laura Wingfield’s glass menagerie, Blanche Dubois’ scarf-covered lampshades, Tony Soprano and the ducks in his swimming pool. Dreams can help guide us to a better understanding of this image-based approach to meaning, with the dual benefit of economy and creating suspense.
Second Dream: I’m working with my wife at a board game design firm in a drab open-plan office. Heavy red draperies hang from ceiling to floor along the walls, so there’s no way to see what’s outside, but I eventually learn the office is located in a strip mall.
Our boss is Tina Fey, or someone who looks very much like her (though less attractive). Wearing a dark blue suit and rubber gloves, she approaches me and says both my wife and I are fired. She then produces a spray bottle and begins aggressively spritzing me with disinfectant. When I try to get her to stop she just sprays even more aggressively, so I take her to the ground, wrestle the spray bottle from her, and spray her directly in the face. No one intervenes.
My wife and I begin packing up our desks and I head out to load up our car in the parking lot. The sidewalk and asphalt are plastered with wet, trampled handbills, and though I can’t read what they say I have the distinct sense they concern the pandemic.
As I’m packing up the car, an African-American gentleman, dressed in bib overalls but with a cheerfully entrepreneurial demeanor, comes up and begins praising the other businesses in the strip mall. He appears to sense that my leaving in some way casts a bad impression on the locale. He in particular wants to talk up the ladder store where he is employed, and shows me one of the heavy-duty ladders they sell. It’s impressive, and I consider buying one, but can’t quite remember if we need one.
If I had to pinpoint a headline that prompted this dream, I’d have to say it concerned the disproportionate impact of the virus on small businesses and African Americans, something my dream mind conjoined into one image. The curtained walls of the office have a certain funereal aspect, whereas ladders suggest rising above, i.e., getting away. Playing board games is one way people are passing the time during quarantine, but there’s also the sense of “playing games,” which is what the gloved boss (and too many politicians) appears to be doing. As for that boss being Tina Fey—I dunno, you tell me.
The next two dreams are actually just fragments—I was unable to remember the complete dream upon waking, but they both display the same elements of economy, condensation, and tension.
Third Dream: I’m being chased by a skilled, determined, masked assassin who clearly wants me dead. Just as I’m cornered, two other gunmen, a plainclothes police officer and a hunter, appear. None of them seems clear on which of the other two is the real threat. They create a “Mexican Standoff,” with each pointing his gun at one of the others, threatening to fire if either of the other two do. After a tense moment, the police officer laughs and says, “Here’s an idea—at the count of three, we all fire.” They begin counting off—one, two… When three arrives, no one shoots, but the delay has allowed me to escape.
Later, after several intervening jumbled scenes, the assassin reveals himself in a casual, almost humorous way. He is a high school classmate of mine, the one who was always first in every subject, and very competitive about it. (I usually came in close behind, but seldom if ever at the top.)
I call that one my “Tarantino Writes the Screenplay for my High School Reunion” dream. Like all of the others, including the next one, the same theme generates the scene: the increasing difficulty of escaping the peril.
Fourth Dream: My wife and I are in a Third World country. There are people in the streets, and a sense of simmering upheaval, but nothing like mass protests or riots. Not yet.
We enter a sedately stylish if less than extravagant bar, which is located in a hotel basement. Instead of liquor bottles on the shelves, however, there are just large crystal jars filled with brightly colored liquids, which I assume to be juice concoctions of some sort, but which also convey a queasy biological specimen vibe. Regardless, the bartender is both willing and able to make my wife and I martinis, though where he gets the ingredients is something of a mystery.
Nearby, a man in a white linen suit rises from a table where he has been speaking with a couple; as he passes, I notice in his demeanor a stern, dark formality that suggests he works for the security services.
After he’s left, I make a quiet remark to my wife, something about smoking pot in my teens. The man at the nearby table suddenly stiffens, turns his head as though to listen in further. I can see that he is dripping sweat, and trembling. He murmurs something to his woman companion, and they abruptly leave. Once they’re gone, I tell my wife we should also leave, and quickly.
Outside, the scene is noticeably more chaotic. Time is short. We need to flee the country, if we still can.
Needless to say, another of my anxieties concerns not just the pandemic but the threat to democracy it poses. After I told my wife (who is half Norwegian) about this dream, she replied with her usual, dreamlike economy, “I’m going to miss this house when we move to Norway.” (The view at daybreak from the living room of our home outside Bergen is the featured image I chose for this post. Life could be worse, obviously, if we do indeed expatriate.)
How is the pandemic affecting your dreams? Care to share any? Intend to incorporate any of them into your fiction?
David Corbett (he/him) is the author of seven novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime (a New York Times Notable Book), Blood of Paradise (nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday, and The Truth Against the World. He has also published the story collection Thirteen Confessions and the novella The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell.
David’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories.
His non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest.
He has taught both online and in classroom settings through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character (“A writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.” —Elizabeth Brundage), and Writer’s Digest published his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
Yes! Definitely having pandemic-induced anxiety dreams. And, like your dog, our cat wanders around the house and meows every time he enters a room, waking us up.
Oh, yes; my dreams these days have been more vivid and memorable. The only one I’ve written down (so far) involved my going around in a wheelchair (which I really did several months ago after ankle surgery), making my way through a room full of young children, and leaving the wheelchair to go outside on foot. I took a few steps, realized I had forgotten my cane (which I still really use when leaving the house), rejected the idea of returning to that crowded room to fetch it, and decided that I would be OK without the cane. Walked through streets nearly deserted because of the pandemic, bought a few paints and brushes at a Chinese shop where the stock was depleted (pandemic again), and planned to visit the grocery shop next, but then woke up.
The pandemic effect is obvious. My decision to proceed without cane is encouraging and I hope prophetic. I’m still mulling over the young children and the Chinese shop.
Years ago I read Ann Faraday’s books on dreams — The Dream Game and Dream Power — and found them instructive. She was especially firm about avoiding arbitrary definitions of symbols but counseled reflecting on the relationship of dream images to one’s own life. Other workers with dreams now give similar advice.
I fell out of the habit of recording dreams but now think it would be a fruitful practice to revive in this time of plague (thank you, David!) as a way to nurture writing. Looking back at the dream above, I can see a whole bunch of writing prompts calling out for development.
Perhaps our dreams these days are telling us that our imaginations and minds are still there, whether they are paralyzed by the pandemic or overactive. Either way, we can use what we have now, even if it is not part of our everyday carry.
Hi, Anna:
Well, your unconscious is certainly not paralyzed, and I wouldn’t worry about it being overactive. As your comment about linking images to life experience suggests, the value of dreams is their ability to symbolically render our deeper emotional states–not by describing them, but rendering them pictorially in the form of a story, though the stories are ofen disjointed. There the jump-cut transitions between sections can themselves be meaningful, and shouldn’t be neglected.
I’d keep that dream journal handy.
Hey David – Well, I feel like I’ve never known you better. And I’ve never been more terrified, lol.
Seriously, you’ve made me think about last night’s dream in a whole new light (daylight?). I woke knowing I’d had a dream about our former business place (a wholesale lumberyard that sold prefinished exterior lumber products–mostly siding).
I’ve long hated dreaming about the place (we left 17 years ago), and swiftly dismissed it for that reason. But your post prompted me go back for a closer look. There was something quite different about this one. A big part of my job was managing the production of the prefinishing department. We had several machines that could be adapted to running “board” products (up to 12″ wide) which was the most prevalent, to “panel” products (mostly 4’X8′ plywood siding) by switching out the machine’s “brush heads.”
In the dream, I direct an indistinct crew of three to switch out the brush heads on one machine to run panels. I feel confident they can run the panel portion of the order and I leave them to it. Meanwhile, I have another, more specialized portion of the order, with several intricate and fragile items that need to be prefinished in the same coating as the panels my faceless crew is running. I figure I’ll just run them myself on the same heads after the panels are done. (It wasn’t uncommon for me to closely oversee special add-ons back in the day.)
I come back to find Crew Faceless has completely screwed the pooch on the panel order. Those they’ve racked are unevenly coated, with some bare spots and blobs of coating, edges not completely sealed (a huge pet peeve of mine, known by all). I light into the crew, but they’re unfazed, uncaring. I realize I’m going to have to rerun the order, feeding the machine myself (something I did when we first started prefinishing and only had one machine and one two-man crew, as a third man was needed once a week).
I thought of the intricate part of the order, and as I helped to unrack and re-deck the panels to be rerun, I sent our veteran yard-foreman (someone who preceded me at the yard, a folksy-wise, grizzled farmer whom I came to respect greatly) to get the rest of the order, to run it all together. Foreman brought the stuff, and yes, this was a bunch of weird odds and ends–crazy sharp edges and deep grooves, all very fragile.
I become really apprehensive, standing in front of the machine, looking at the huge spinning panel brushes (they were coarser, much less forgiving and more difficult to adjust, than the lumber head brushes). The foreman, still standing there, says something like, “None of that stuff’s wide, boss.” (Meaning, the intricate items didn’t require the panel brushes.) “You can just run them on regular heads, and use the knives.” (There were air-knives just beyond the exit brush of the lumber heads, which blew out excess coating from nooks and crannies, and left a much more uniform film thickness).
“But the panels,” I complained.
Folksy foreman shook his head. “You know these guys can handle it. You’ve already committed to another coat. That’s a done deal. Just pump out the coating and use it on (our best machine–the one I would use when I ran a machine myself).”
My new take? I’m deep into a rewrite. The panels are the world-building; the broad swath of a story I’ve been working on for years. The faceless crew is me, smoothing out the big-picture details of the story as I do my “close work,” which is the intricate part of the order–changing a character’s inner conflicts and motivations, his secret desires.
The folksy foreman… Well, not sure who he is. But I’m guessing it’s just me again. Maybe a deeper, subconscious wise part of me, letting me know that I can focus with my favorite tools, working out the intricate stuff–that the rest of the big-picture, broad-swath stuff will work itself out. That even my faceless storytelling crew can get the job done now that I’ve committed to a second coat (a complete rewrite).
I don’t think it has anything to do with the pandemic. Maybe it reveals what I’m most concerned with at the moment? In fact, I don’t recall having any dreams that reflect the pandemic, but I could be kidding myself. Guess I’d better start paying better attention. Or, maybe, my commitment to reading and watching less news and focusing on the work is actually paying off. Maybe.
Interesting stuff! Your essay, the observation about Joseph and the Sokoloff quote, all make me think I ought to start paying much more heed. Thanks, as always, for getting me thinking and digging. Wishing you, your wife, and the dogs peaceful nights to come!
Hey Vaughn:
I like your interpretation of the dream, but I’m not so sure it doesn’t relate to the pandemic as well.
The faceless crew are those people refusing to heed good advice and unwittingly spreading the diseases (the “bad spreaders”). You feel alone and vulnerable and hyper-responsible given their carelessness. The wise foreman is the wise inner you — or the frequently contradicted medical experts — assuring you you are protecting yourself correctly.
And it could mean both things — dreams are funny that way.
Thanks for chiming in. And yeah, dreams reveal a part of ourselves that might comes as a surprise if not an outright shock to some folks.
No thanks David. I don’t want to share any of mine, but I will share this in the hope it makes someone laugh:
“- Mitch Taylor: You know, um, something strange happened to me this morning…
– Chris Knight: Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?
– Mitch Taylor: No…
– Chris Knight: Why am I the only one who has that dream?”
From the 1985 movie Real Genius.
“Why am I the only one” indeed. How tempting it would be to digress into an interpretation of ” little pickles.”
Thanks for that, James. My first hearty smile of the day.
David, I love the details you’re able to remember about your dreams! I’ve kept a journal for years now, and it’s fascinating to look back. Odd how I’d forgotten so many dreams, but that some seem as vivd as yesterday. I’ve been having a recurring-location dream off and on for a while now, the location being a city nestled in mountains I conflate with a certain location in NJ (it makes no sense, really, but I have a feeling of certainty about this, as if the city is a kind of ‘alternate for the real-world place). Anyway, it’s University town and up until a week ago, I only got to walk around the campus and surrounding neighborhoods which, funnily enough, include a great Mexican restaurant. Then the other night I found myself inside the buildings, walking down the University hallways looking for an office where I was to sign papers of admission. I passed library full of leather-bound books and tweedy pipe-smoking men and finally emerged in a darkened gallery with a centerpiece sculpture, reminiscent of Rodin, of a man battling what looked like sea monsters. I had lots of anxiety dreams while I was care-taking my elderly Mom, but not around the pandemic. Not sure what any of that means. The only thing I’m sure of these days is that I should keep writing. I feel sanest when I’m in the chair. Thank you for this. Beautiful photo, BTW!
Thanks, Susan. The conjunction of “care-taking my elderly mom” and “battling with … sea monsters” pretty much focuses the mind, doesn’t it? Monsters of the deep — death, dread, the unknowable — not the forested mountain or the quiet halls or the library with the fusty scholars. And yet the stillness suggests a certain calm, as does the fact that the monsters are statues, not real. It’s eerie, but not overwhelming. That sounds positive to me. You?
I liked the dream. Would love to go back and take some classes!
Okay, so what does it mean that when my alarm woke me this morning, I was dreaming that I was a guest in Stephen King’s house, but Stephen was sleeping around the clock and all the guests were terrified of waking him? (True dream.)
Yes! I too have been having the most vivid and bizarre dreams of my entire life. I had not thought to write them down but now…huh…I am starting a new WIP about a time when everyone in the world begins to have the same dream, over and over, and it’s a dream of…no, I won’t tell you, you’ll have to sleep.
Seriously, what you’re touching on for me, David, is the bizarre yet telling details of character’s lives. Quirks and weirdness are a tool I’ve overlooked. Not anymore.
Thanks. Stay safe and dream on.
Thanks, Benjamin. I dedicate an entire section of The Art of Character to Quirks, Tics, and Bad Habits. They can be incredibly simple ways to make a character suddenly pop before the mind’s eye.
Benjamin, you were Stephen King’s guest? Can you get me a ticket?
David, I dreamed that I was in a big circus tent, and you were at the center, showing a Mr. Clean-like aspect (bulging muscles, large gold earring, and you were at least 8 feet tall). The matter that you were wearing a diaphanous puce tutu on your lower regions only magnified your magnificence.
You had large whip which was actually a well-cooked penne pasta, with which you directed a circle of gleaming vintage autos (Packards, Duesenbergs, Aston Martins) which yipped, mewled and mooed like animals, but which followed your pasta guidance.
Suddenly, a radiantly glowing huge roll of toilet paper descended from the ceiling, crowned with what looked like a bishop’s miter, and a ribbon of it unfurled, showing the title of one of Richard Brautigan’s poetry collections “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.”
Well, that’s what I would have liked to have dreamt. I rarely remember my dreams, and from some accounts here, perhaps I’m better off. Washing the hands of my dreams now.
Wow, Tom. I had that EXACT same dream.
Getting up to go wash my dram hands.
Hi David. Yes, I’ve written a few dreams laden with pandemic levels of meaning. Even a nightmare.
You asked for ideas about Tine Fey being “the boss” in your second dream. No one can say exactly what that image means for you, of course. And a dream image has more than one meaning. Still, if it were my dream, on one level Tina Fey suggests Donald Trump. In the waking world, Trump is a self-described germaphobe and clearly identifies as “the boss” who loves to say, “you’re fired.” In the dream, Fey is wearing rubber gloves (no direct human contact), aggressively sprays me and my wife with disinfectant (not only am I fired, but all trace of my contaminating presence must be eliminated), and I have to wrestle the sprayer away to make her stop (she’s incapable of regulating her reaction and will endlessly spray her “disinfectant”). On this last detail, to disinfect in the Trump Era means eliminate relevant facts (fake news).
It’s a great dream. One more shameless projection, if I may. The dreamer is packing the car to leave the strip mall with his wife. Again, this is shameless projection, but if it were my dream and I have a waking-life option to live in Norway (even the remotest possibility), on one level the strip mall is the USA (or my piece of it).
Thanks for sharing your fascinating dream series. Like Vaughn above, I know you and the other commenters better for it. Indeed, sharing your dreams has been a generous act that overcomes the necessary social distancing of the moment.
Wow. Fascinating take on Tina Fey. My major connection to her is through 30 Rock, where she was indeed the boss in the same way she was here, trying deperately to hold on to some semblance of control in the midst of chaos when she commands virtually no true authority. But I’d associate Trump more with the Alec Baldwin character; who knows, given dream logic, he may be there, lurking in the symbolic background. The red curtains, for example, lend not just a funeral air but one of fake “richness.” So maybe Tina Fey is Pence, or the other top administration figures “spraying lies.”
You can play this game forever, which is what makes it so fascinating.
Okay, gang, get ready. Here’s the eeriest one yet. Fresh off the dream presses.
I am in the house of my late wife and I. (Not really — our house looked nothing like this — but in the dream…) The room I enter is huge and largely empty except for a massive marble fireplace (with a roaring fire inside) and a slab with a draped body on it. The body belongs to my late wife. She has passed away, but no one’s come to remove her body yet. (Due to the pandemic? Unclear.)
I tend to the fire for a moment, and when I turn around I see the figure on the slab is trying to sit up. I rush to it, tear the drape away to see it isn’t my wife after all but a man with a brtually disfigured face. In fact, he resembles one of the Bog Bodies on display at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. I take a shovel from beside the fire and beat him “to death.”
It’s right around then that I woke myself up, trying to scream but unable to make more than a muffled moan due to the fact I’m still asleep.
Horrible and frightening, David, but in time perhaps clarifying. I bow to your courage in laying out this dream before the sharp perceptions and analytic skills of the WU folks. (Ahh….you weren’t having us on, were you?)
Trust me, Anna, the last thing I feel after a dream like that is courage. As for laying myself bare — I’ve already done my psychological homework on these dreams. Whatever anyone else says will either be reaffirmation, an intriguing new take, or irrelevant.
Your dream brings me to the edge of raw terror. Who has passed but has returned to remind us of times when we felt loved and most alive? What kind of monster snatches a dead body laid out on a cold marble slab ? Who laid the fire and for what purpose? The phrase you can’t beat a dead horse comes to mind. But these are senseless times. We go to sleep not knowing who will survive the night? Who laid the fire? Who will stoke it when the last ember falls to dust? Who but those of us who believe long departed souls are listening can awaken from a dream voiceless but believing we can still scream?
Talk about an intriguing new take. Wow. That’s a poem, Shawn, or the beginning of one. I’ll be thinking about it all night (damn you!).
You’ve come a long way since Watterson High and the Dominican Inquisition. And you wear it well. Thanks so much for chiming in.
Hi David,
I know there have been some weird/bad dreams, because I remember the waking in the middle of the night, heart pounding or trying to scream/call out/do something. By morning, the memory of the specifics is gone, though the body memory of the experience is still there.
The one thing I do know is none of them has been a variation on my recurring dream at more normal times of stress, which is of tornadoes – either me in danger, or those I love with me trying to protect them. That’s what you get when you grow up watching THE WIZARD OF OZ once a year!
Hope you and Mette and the pups stay safe, and can at least get back to Norway for a visit soon…
What better symbolizes a total lack of control than a tornado?
We’re all fine, Carol, hope you are too. Thanks for chiming in.
David:
I sometimes have vivid memories of my dreams, but they are so disjointed I can’t make out any coherent message. For example: School has been canceled due to an expected snowstorm, so I’m standing outside waiting for the school bus to take me home along with some students (I seem to be a teacher or administrator). First, though, I have to dump a carton of buttermilk in the culvert (I specifically remember it was buttermilk) that’s gone bad, which galls me because food waste is a sin to me. I don’t recall any bus ride, but suddenly find myself driving in the dusk on a slushy street in our neighborhood. Then the car disappears and I’m floating above the pavement, and it dawns on me that I must be dead. End of dream, as far as I recall.
Interpretations, anyone?
HI, Christine:
My first question is: How did it FEEL when you were floating above the pavement? Was it frightening? Intriguing? Liberating? That would be the key for me, concerning what that part meant. Flying dreams are very common, and can mean a variety of things, from joy to panic.
If you really are dead, I can’t help thinking: Boy, you really are hard on yourself for throwing out food. (Joke.)
I also couldn’t help but wonder: How could you tell the buttermilk was bad. Did it just smell worse than normal? (Another joke, sorta.)
Seriously, this sounds like a death anxiety dream. (Snow — the great blinding whiteness — is a big giveaway.) The fact you would do somethjing you otherwise would never do also suggests finality: “If not for [x], I would never [y].” The bus never appears, the car vanishes, but you ascend. I feel like your unconscious is trying to tell you: Yes, you will die, but it’s okay.
But that’s just me spit-balling. Or, as my late wife would call it, an insta-hit.
Thanks, David. Now that I think about it, I’m starting to feel panic mixed with hope when I suspect I’ve died. But the fact that the buttermilk had “gone bad” and couldn’t be saved has ominous implications . . .
For the most part I feel I don’t dream at all, I simply die and get jolted to life again when the alarm goes off.
That said, there have been periods when I was jolted in the middle of the night by nightmares mostly concerning work and whether I left something undone or made a mistake, or I have a realistic dream, in full color, of my late wife yelling at me for messing with her stuff and scolding me to quit telling everyone that she died when clearly anyone can see she is most certainly alive. I half wake up confused believing the dream true and that I am now dreaming it to be false.
The only other dreams I am aloud is during the quick nine minutes between slamming the snooze button and the new alarm of which I can rarely remember what happened.
I am intrigued by your ability to keep a dream journal and am interested in the physics of working it. Do you get up in the middle of the night and record the dreams when they are fresh in your memory, or do you make a full mental note of the details and record them first thing in the morning? Do you actually write them out or perhaps dictate them?
Curious?
First, TR, the dream about your late wife insisting she’s alive is incredibly poignant. I can only wonder what it’s like to wake from such a dream.
I don’t normally keep a dream journal but my recent dreams have been so vivid, memorable, and odd that I haven’t been able to help myself. I write them down, don’t dictate. I’m sure I miss some things, but I’m not striving for scientific accuracy, just keeping a record.
Take care, stay safe.
Trust you to choose such an interesting angle on this mess, David! I’m not dreaming more often or more vividly, but I did have a strange series of dreams a few months ago, when there were only a few mentions of a new virus in China.
In the first dream, one of my closest friends (for decades) said and did something that made me so angry that after a brief argument I ended the friendship. The dream disturbed me and I tried to think if there was some underlying tension I hadn’t been aware of.
Over the next week, I had two more such dreams, each with an equally close long-time friend. I was freaking out a little, and puzzled by the uncharacteristic anger that overwhelmed me in the dreams. And toward the three friends I’m closest to?
I wonder now if my unconscious was warning me to be prepared to lose people (or things) I love.
I hope you and your wife stay safe. What a gorgeous view from your Norwegian home!
I think you’re right, Barbara, in your interpretation of your dreams. It is curious that you had several such dreams, each with a different close friend. And anger is always a masking emotion: for fear and grief in this instance.
We love that house. I miss it. Not sure when we’ll be able to go back. If it weren’t for the two dogs, we might have moved already.
Stay safe & healthy.
When I lived in Los Angeles, my stressful-times dreams always involved my car and driving away or into a brick wall. Now that I live in Ventura, Calif., I’ve been dreaming that I am walking along the beach, which is where I go to relax and which is closed due to COVID-19. And yes, the beach and ocean are very important in my WIP.
Hi David,
You made an interesting point about how some people with anxiety and depression under normal circumstances have seen an improvement in symptoms through all this. That’s the case with my daughter. She actually seems the happiest she has been in years now. Some of this is because there is no pressure at all to be social. No one can be social so she’s not scrolling through her feeds and seeing everyone having more fun than she is. Also, she is one of the few people her age who still has a job. Stocking shelves in the beauty section at Target is generally pretty thankless, but right now people are so grateful when she puts out the hand soaps. People tell her all day that she’s brave for being there and that they appreciate her hard work. This makes her feel like she is making a contribution to society – which she is! The hazard pay doesn’t hurt either.
Of course, my anxiety is worse since I live with two essential workers and it is allergy season, so coughs and sneezes are all normal right now. I’m having strange dreams, too.
Hi, Kim:
You may find the article on that counter-intuitive result for some depression sufferers interesting. I included it in the post above. A number of them say that seeing others openly anxious is somehow reaffirming, and the internal world no longer seems so cut off from the external.
And how gratifying that your daughter is hearing so many positive things in response to her being out there in Scarytown.
Meanwhile, take care of you and your loved ones. That does sound anxiety-inducing.