Dreams
are weird. Dreams can be mysterious,
most often the nighttime subconscious are random thoughts that attempt to make
a plot, but they are never quite cohesive. The actors in the drama are usually
friends or families, an occasional stranger I suppose, but mostly the characters
we knew, though they have been dead 10 years and you can’t think of a time
you consciously thought of them in a decade.
My
mom told me the other night she had a cramp in her foot in the middle of the
night and in the midst of the cramp dreamed of my dad. She was startled to see my dad at the
foot of the bed with a rifle shooting at her foot, thinking it was a
squirrel. Dad passed away over a
year ago but a cramped toe was enough for the subconscious to raise one from
the dead to eliminate the critter that was causing my mom pain.
I’m
presently in throes of the vortex of subconscious illusions, known to the traveler
as jetlag. The eleven and half
hour time change compound my thirty-six hour journey from Siloam Springs to
Bangalore, which is enough to dull the human senses. Why, at 3 p.m. do I feel that I should be curled up in a bed
in deep zone sleep instead of trying to have a conversation with my host colleague
who is clearly wide awake, full of energy and is planning a get-together supper
at a fancy restaurant after work?
When I am able to call it a day, hopefully about 8 pm, I’m out in an
instant only to be eyes wide open at 11:00 pm. I search for sleeping pills knowing that if I don’t quickly
fall back to asleep I will toss and turn until 5 am, exhausted but must face
the cruel morning sun without a chance to lie down again for another 14
hours. Like a zombie I will see
the day as a distorted series of events, neither enjoying nor comprehending
what I do in my stupor.
In
between the first wake up and the sleeping pill induced knockout, I dream. Last nights dream was about an uncle
that passed away two years ago. At
the funeral the daughters mourned by simultaneously telling jokes and arguing
with each other. We drove to a cemetery
that resembled a hay field surrounded by a subdivision in one of the most
exclusive resorts in Southern California. My uncle, according to my dream,
bought these two hundred aces of prime real estate fifty years ago because he
thought it would be suitable resting place. The land had become so expensive that he sold off much of it
in his latter years, but still possessed enough sod to cover his mortal
remains.
An
old girlfriend approached me at the cemetery and asked me if I had moved on
since our breakup. Not having a
clue who she was I said yes, all the time trying to remember who she was. She said she “needed closure,” which I
suppose meant one last date, one last kiss. I didn’t need closure, I confessed, and was quite happy and
that any feelings on my part were nonexistent, especially since I didn’t
remember her at all.
Now
that it’s morning I review the three acts of my nighttime theater I wonder if
anyone of it has meaning. The
funeral of distant relatives I’ve not seen in forty years, the girlfriend I
obviously dumped but have no recollection of her existence, and my dad’s quirky
remedy for cramps. I am sure they
are not dreams of any spiritual implications, nothing like Josephs dream of
seven wheat sheaves bowing down to him, unless it is a sign from God that my
uncle wants me to prepare a cemetery plot where in time it will be a good
business deal for my children and that the strange girlfriend is a reminder to
make things right with those I have offended and dad, though he is gone, still
wants to control things as he did when he was alive.
Since
jetlag dreams have no basis for rationality I can merely smile, take another
pill and see if I can go back to sleep so when I do wake the world will make
more sense.
