I’m Not (Yet) Dreaming of a White Christmas

I spent a good many years in the Northwest Suburbs of Illinois, 35 long, cold years to be exact. Last week a friend texted me about an imminent winter storm, one which dumped about 8″ of snowy goodness in the burbs. It’s maybe a bit early for a powerdering like that, but locals just shake their heads and fire up the blower. All that to say, as a transplant to Texas, I don’t miss snow. Shoveling, scraping, slipping, shivering, and a bunch of other -ing verbs, I don’t miss any of them.

This prelude simply introduces the idea of what I’m not dreaming of. But the real point of this post is what I am dreaming of. Now, there’s a list.

I’ve commented before on my vivid and prodigious dream life. All night, every night it seems, they just keep coming. I’m not sure what it is about my psyche or subconscious, but it churns out dreams like a politician churns out lies, fibs, and fabrications. It’s a Siggy Freud trip to Disney World

I’m hardly alone in this. Dreams, whether the nighttime version or the hopes we carry in our hearts, are part of our DNA. To be human is to dream.

Take a moment to think. How many references can you generate? Song titles, movies, poems, plays, or just common phrases?

Off the top of my head–I Dream of Jeannie, Dream a Little Dream of Me, Dreamer (by Supertramp), Dreamweaver, I’ve Got a Dream. Tons of movies deal with dreams, from The Wizard of Oz to Inception and a slew of others.

Broken, pipe, American, day, car, house, date, and the dreaded fever. All dreams. We’re drowning in dreams.

Novels, plays, poetry all address dreams. Langston Hughes, a fantastic poet during the Harlem Renaissance, wrote A Dream Deferred. As a black man surrounded my racism and limited opportunities in 1951, he knew a few things about deferring dreams. He begins his poem posing the question:

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

If you haven’t read it, you need to check it out. In a simple poem, Hughes articulates all the outcomes of not chasing our dreams. We all know the pleasures and pains of dreams during our waking hours. But consider the other dreams, those that occur during sleep.

For no great reason, I’ve begun keeping a dream journal. I create dreams like Stephen King produces blizzards of words. Sooooo many dreams. About a month ago, I decided to record some of them. Short summaries, often non-sensical because dreams don’t translate well to words. Even in my head, they’re random shards of images loosely woven together into a broken narrative. On paper, they make even less sense.

If Walt Disney is correct, that a dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re asleep…I may be in trouble.

I wish I could say I have some grand goal in mind, some larger purpose, some grand insight I hope to achieve. Nope. Maybe, it’s simply entertainment value for anyone who opens the notebook. Maybe some themes will emerge in time, unlocking the mysteries of my bent psyche. Or, more likely, each night is simply a mosaic of words and images, an abstract jigsaw of my most recent life.

A few dreams have turned into short stories, which is a bonus. Lots of dreams about family and friends, both living and dead. I rather like the ones with my mom or dad, some sort of cameo appearance. I do wish I had some control so I could summon characters or control the narrative or at least the setting. But that’s not how it works.

The majority of my dreams fall somewhere between pleasant and benign or odd. Occasionally, there’s a nightmare, but mostly, my dreams are long, disjointed, and ridiculously detailed.

For the present, I’ll continue to chronicle my dreams. I have pages to fill, and at the rate I dream, it won’t take long.

Back to White Christmas. I haven’t had nocturnal visits with Bing or Danny Kaye crooning their way through WWII. But with the season upon us, I have a feeling I can expect them soon in some form. And they won’t be alone. I also expect the Grinch, Jimmy Stewart, Will Ferrell, Snoopy, Tim Allen, maybe even Bruce Willis defending Nakatomi Plaza. I hope I don’t shoot my eye out or get visited by three ghosts. I wouldn’t mind a train ride conducted by Tom Hanks. After all, tis the season.

When I lay my head down at night, the question I ask is, if I may borrow from Willy Shakes, “What dreams may come?”

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