I have always wondered just how it is people interpret dreams.

• I have had one nightmare in the past where my head, hands and genitals (I am male) began expanding in size and suddenly shrinking very quickly and very painfully.

• I remember running down a street in the middle of an old New England city (around the turn of the century) where there were street signs that all said that nobody is quite there (?) and I see a woman pushing a baby carriage and I ask her for help. She reacts violently and pushes my face against the baby in the carriage which immediately becomes a sticky, gooey mass of guck.

  Over the horizon which seems to bend over the city like the side of a carpet being rolled up, I see a mad musical conductor over an orchestra of burning auto parts and obscure mechanical devices. He waves his arms madly and sweat comes out of each of his pores, spraying into the air.

  He stops suddenly and looks at me and by pointing his finger I realize that society and everybody has just denounced me and I begin to crumble like dust.

• In another dream, the members of the Brady Bunch are standing around naked. The environment is nothing but a canvas of blue. On the floor are several water pipes scattered about. The oldest member of the group picks up a pipe, takes his youngest sister by the throat and pushes her inside the pipe. She is completely rammed down the tiny pipe--as does the rest of the group afterwards.

  When it is my turn, another group (of the same family appear and try to force me inside the pipe starting with my genitals. I feel my bones crushed down to nothing and I feel the tinyness of the pipe around me.

• In the last dream I shall recall, I was wearing a leather hood over my head so I could not see. I was evidently naked and was suspended in air above the ground several miles. I was standing on the tip of a hair-thin needle with my right big toe. A trickle of blood traveled down the needle.

EDITOR'S NOTES

These nightmares were submitted to Somnial Times: Newsletter of the Dreamers SIG [of Mensa] in June 1991. I doubt their accuracy for several reasons:

1. Consider that needle scene. If Hans is blindfolded, how does he know he's several miles in the air, or that it's a hair-thin needle? If I dreamed this, I'd only know I'm hooded, naked, outdoors... and my toe hurts! Not nearly so dramatic as the quasi-crucifixion scene described! His account makes artistic sense, not dream sense.
2. Both his intro, "I have always wondered just how it is people interpret dreams", and his conclusion, "Please tell me what you believe these dreams could mean", are ambiguous--are they asking for help in making sense of a nightmarish dreamlife, or are they a challenge, a dare? "You claim dreams have meaning? Here, interpret this!"
   But if Rickheit believes dream interpretation to be silly, finding meaning in noise... then by challenging a forum of dreamworkers to interpret his, he's essentially testing fakers claiming a nonexistent expertise. Does he owe them honesty? Why not submit fakes, or mix real and fake? Can these pseudo-experts tell?
3. I've read Rickheit; his books are in my local library--The Squirrel Machine, Folly, Cochlea and Eustacia. He's always said they're heavily based on his dreams. But they're also nightmarish surrealism, out to shock the bourgeoisie--and these four 'dreams' are exactly like his conscious creations.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Somnial Times: Newsletter of the Dreamers SIG [of Mensa]; Vol III, No. 2: June 1991; Gloria Reiser, coordinator; Judy Landaiche, editor.

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