MacGougan at Large
Notes on Dreams - 5
Neutral Dreams
In the course of this series, I’m working my way up from the Nightmare to the Sweet Dream. Lots of dreams, though, fall somewhere in the middle. I’ll call them Neutral Dreams.
One that I get from time to time is the Dispute Dream. There isn’t much plot to it. It’s basically just an argument.
One nice thing about this dream is that there are at least two voices. Uncomfortable dreams are all pretty much just me. And not even a three-dimensional me, but a solo turn for one of my various insecurities.
The actual issue in the Dispute Dream could be anything. It could be an esoteric philosophical point or a pressing practical decision. Chances are it will be something pretty fuzzy that, if it can be remembered at all, will evaporate to nothing in the morning glare of reality.
A variation on this is the Problem Dream. There’s some challenge that needs to get solved. It’s not a crisis, like a bomb that needs to be defused. Just something needs to get worked out. Again, there are other voices - it isn’t just me.
These Neutral Dreams are notable for the extent to which the topics and individuals involved are a funhouse-mirror version of my life and what shows I watched before going to bed. If I’ve just watched a show where everyone speaks with an accent, the dialogue in the dream, including my own contribution, will likely have that same accent.
I usually don’t remember any of the details of these dreams, but sometimes I recall a character and realize that they were somehow two different people at the same time - a composite maybe of people from different eras of my life. I always find this troubling. Probably I’m reading too much into it, but I wonder: Why do I associate those two people so closely together that they became one person in my dream?
