DARK DREAMS? NOT SO SURE!

I dream of a terrible future.

I wake and tell a friend my dream. She says "Well, but most dreams seem darker than waking life." I consider that. It does seem true of most dreamers and dreams, but my dreams are often happier than waking life. This really did feel unusual--for me.

Curious, I list all the social problems in my dream world on the left, and all the waking world's troubles on the right. Only then, laid out on a page, do I see that my dream, despite several areas worse than our society, had others that were distinctly better. I thought the dream was dark because it focused on the problem spots. But that's not negative or dystopian if dreams are out to solve problems. To do that you have to focus.

And of course we take the waking world's problems for granted, while exotic troubles in dreams stand out. If they're fairly rated, even other people's dreams may be no grimmer than their waking lives.

LET THE COMPUTER HELP EXPLAIN DREAMS

Now I'm walking along an alley with wood fences. Looks like San Diego. I'm thinking about dream recall. "No wonder I don't remember them very well these days. I used to rehearse every scrap on waking and number them mentally so I couldn't forget how many scraps there were, then work backward to an image from each, then fish for details, and link up the scenes... Now I'm lazy; I only write what I spontaneously recall."

I need to get methodical for a while now. An idea comes to me. "Use the computer. Try typing the key words of a dream first, then DUPLICATE that list and add carriage returns and brackets to the copy. Turn it into a list of symbols and themes to ponder, after you write out the dream. Many odd dream elements reveal strong messages if I just stop and ask myself what they mean. But lately I've taken them for granted. If there's a checklist facing me after every dream, forcing me to explain all the key images..."

I wake to find... all these ideas on dreaming were dreams themselves. Dreams trying to be remembered... and understood.

Dreams want to be understood!

NOTES

• San Diego alley with wood fences = where I briefly lived with an abusive girlfriend. My dreams repeatedly warned me "Leave her or you'll get sick and die."
• So the alley = my fears that I set myself up to give but not get, in love. Things that seem trivial may be entries into this issue that I'm so reluctant to think about.
• ACTION: Write ALL my dreams for a while, even the uncomfortable ones, using the dream's technique. And see what happens.

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