MacGougan at Large

Notes on Dreams - 3

Uncomfortable Dreams

I suspect that most of us are subject, at least occasionally, to a wide variety of bad dreams. As noted in the previous installment in this series, some bad dreams qualify as terrifying nightmares. Other bad dreams, however, are less like horror movies and more like a trip to the dentist. Some people call them Anxiety Dreams. For today’s purposes, I’ll call them Uncomfortable Dreams.

My Uncomfortable Dreams mostly fall into one of three categories: Lost; Unprepared; or Out in Public Without an Appropriate Amount of Clothing.

The Lost Dream is stunningly tedious. Generally, the issue is that I’m supposed to be somewhere, but I can’t find my way there. Usually I’m on foot, wandering the corridors of a building or roaming the paths of a campus.

In this dream, time is my enemy. I’m either late or about to be late. I feel like I should know the way to wherever I’m trying to go, but the route doesn’t quite work somehow. I’m stabbed with regret for not having done a better job of planning my timing and route.

In a world full of cell phones with GPS, you’d think that this dream would fade away - but it hasn’t gone away yet.

In the Unprepared Dream, I’m supposed to deliver a talk or perform in a show, but my head is empty. I either haven’t figured out what to say for my talk or I haven’t learned my lines for the show. The lines-for-the-show version is sometimes known as “the actor’s nightmare”. It doesn’t meet my definition of nightmare, but it’s still pretty uncomfortable.

The Out in Public Without an Appropriate Amount of Clothing Dream is even more uncomfortable. I’m at school or at church or running an errand. Inexplicably, it’s only then that I realize that I’ve failed to be dressed. I’m either buck naked or have something very meager to try to wrap around myself.

When I was a young man, I’d get this dream with some regularity. Now that I’m an old codger, it seems to have fallen out of the rotation. I’m not sure what that means. Am I now more at peace with my body? Have I figured out that it’s a preposterous premise? In any event, it makes me wonder what other dreams I used to take for granted but have now forgotten.

One sad and striking feature about all these Uncomfortable Dreams is that there’s nobody helping me out. To the extent that there are other people around - an audience waiting for my talk or performance, bystanders wondering whether I have any clothes on - those other people are the problem rather than the solution.

The side of myself manifested in Uncomfortable Dreams is clearly trapped in my own head and oblivious to the kindness of my friends, family members, and even sometimes strangers. I wonder if some of our crueler political figures might be haunted by their own Uncomfortable Dreams.