ON DREAMS

Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another. It’s a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.
**Federico Fellini




Dreams have a poetic integrity and truth. This limbo and dust-hole of thought is presided over by a certain reason, too. Their extravagance from nature is yet within a higher nature.

**Ralph Waldo Emerson



















HANK: I used to have a recurring dream where I am supposed to write a story for the 6 o'clock news, and I'm in the car on the way to the station to edit my video. I know, in order to get it done, I have to write my script in the car. (In reality, this happens every day for a general assignment reporter.) But in my dream, I can't find any implement to write with. All my pencils break. All my pens are dry. I finally wind up writing my story using my fingernail to make indentations in my notebook, hoping I'd be able to read them.

The first time I had this dream, I was so freaked out when I woke up! My husband said I should put that time on my time sheet as having worked--I was certainly as tired and stressed as I would have been if I were awake through it all!

Clearly this is a TV stress dream, and I had it over and over. (Anyone have the "I have to take a test and I can't find the classroom and why didn't I study" dream? I certainly have. I think it's so prevalent they call it the "Yale Dream." And I've always wondered whether they have it in other cultures, or what stress dreams are in, say, Siberia.)

But the last time I had the TV dream, I said to my sleeping self, and I remember this clearly: Oh yeah, this is that stupid pencil dream. And it stopped. And I've never had it again.

What do you think about that?

And is there a book dream? A writer's dream?

RO: A lot of people seem to have "The Test Dream." Anthony Soprano even had one....he was "unprepared." If I've ever had that I don't remember. I do have one recurring dream - all of you wannabe shrinks out there, get your pencils sharpened.

I'm in a one story house in the middle of a barren landscape. It's warm and everything in the dream is some shade of brown or gold. There are a lot of doors to the house. I'm outside and so is a pride of lions. They start to approach me and I manage to walk slowly to the house and get inside. One of the lions comes in another door. I go out a third door. I'm concerned but, I never run. This goes on for a while, but the lions never catch me.

Then there's the dream where Julia Roberts options my book. (Just kidding.)

HALLIE: Ah, anxiety dreams. I used to teach, so I have teaching anxiety dreams. I can't find my classroom. I can't get the class under control. Lately, it's that I've taken a job teaching and I'm going to have to do it, all year. That's a real nightmare.

What I love is when I realize I'm dreaming and I can make the me in the dream do what I want. Like fly.

Oddly, I never dream about the book I'm writing.

JAN: I have the reporter dream, where I've filed the story and there's nothing I can do but wait for it to appear in the next day's paper. I suddenly realize that I've gotten some key piece of information wrong. Like the name of the subject I'm writing about. Or the correct charges. Or whether the company made money or lost money for the quarter.

Lately, I've had a new dream . Now that my youngest is off to college and by husband and I are officially empty nesters, I keep dreaming I've adopted more children. Last night, I dreamt that I thought I was adopting one more child, only she came with two younger siblings and I was starting childrearing all over again! I don't think I need Freud to analyze what that dream means.





HANK: And if I might add, sometimes dreams do come true...my newest Charlotte McNally mystery, FACE TIME, goes on sale this week! Sara Paretsky says "FACE TIME is a gripping fast-paced thriller with an important story line and an engaging heroine..." There's more from the divine Sara (whose anthology with other Sisters in Crime is on sale right now and a MUST read) but check my website for all the info.

And now--tell us your dreams! Or, if you dare, what ours mean...