The Problem with the Dream is the Dreamer.

The nice thing about writing is that the words are always at my fingertips. They may jump the tracks on the way to my lips, but my tips are always on track and on time

I’m a writer not a talker.

At least not about the substantial.  Words are bombs to be left in backlit silhouetted font corners.

“It says here that…”

Boom!

Conversations are a different matter. Conversations are about things that are close. Conversationalists have to stay and live the aftermath.  With the mouth, I’m always quick with the wrong joke, or slow to speak the right words.

When it comes to writing though, I always know what to say, and I have time to edit.  An instant in writer world is like hours in the real world.  It’s like the opposite of the dream world.

In dreams, you can relive life’s river rapids in less time than it takes drool to trickle down your cheek. In dreams your decisions may not be right, but they are interesting.

Usually.

Have you ever had boring dreams? Have you ever woken up and thought, “Man, I need to go to work for some excitement.”  It’s rare, but it does happen. Those dreams are worse than the dreams where you think you’ve woken up, but you’re still asleep.

And almost as bad as the dream where you scream in your dream but you have no voice for that scream to escape. I’ve had that dream a lot lately.  A few nights ago MyQueen woke me up because I was mew-whining in bed, and kicking all the sheets down.

“Honey, if you’re going to kick the sheets, kick them over here. It’s cold.” 

The next morning she asked me about the dream. 

“I dunno.”  I said.  I couldn’t remember the dream. Only that I was trapped in some net and I needed out. I couldn’t even scream to make anybody hear me. In my dream, even the mew-whine wouldn’t come out and I was trapped, for what seemed like forever.

“I had a weird dream last night,” said MyQueen, trying to start her dream conversation. “I dreamed that I woke up, and walked out to the living room, and you were on the couch, watching porn.”

“Can I have your dream?” I thought I’d ask, it sounded more appealing than the one I’d had.

“I was pissed.” She continues with the details. She doesn’t need to; she had me at “porn.”

“Maybe we should trade dreams.” I offer. I wouldn’t have been pissed and she’s a strategist.  Maybe she can find her way out of the net. Maybe not, but either way, a dream where I watch porn certainly sounds more appealing than a dream where I’m trapped and voiceless.

Odd that those are the only dreams I remember lately. I don’t remember any dreams of promise.  Where are the cool spy dreams I had when I was a kid?

“Chocolate milk, shaken, not stirred.”

I had a dream a few weeks ago where I was teaching a Sunday school class.  I was teaching the kids about Jesus, and his sacrifice, and I started expounding on his birth. In the dream, I was trying to make a point, about the relevance of that birth. In my dream I said, “The most important thing that you need to take from this birth…” and then I burst into tears. Overcome by the enormity of Jesus’ sacrifice and that the concept I tried to convey could not be expressed in mortal words. Then my dream shifted into three pictures of Jesus that sort of looked like FaceBook icons and three broken Q-tips.

Then I woke up.

After that revelation, I woke up, just as befuddled as when I fell asleep. My dreams don’t make any sense to anybody, and lately they’ve made even less sense to me. And yet I cling to them, because these dreams are mine. They’re why I go to sleep. They’re answers to questions that cannot be expressed in mortal words.

And maybe when I figure them out, I’ll have a great story to tell for it.

For now, I blog.