MacGougan at Large
Notes on Dreams - 1
Our Parallel Life
We spend two-thirds of our lives in a space we share with one another. For want of a better term, I’ll call that reality. We spend the other third in a shadowy alternate space unique to ourselves. It’s a space in which we’re buffeted by hopes and fears that at some level we know must arise from ourselves, but which seem to be entirely beyond our control.
Does this sound like a popular science fiction program? When we’re in either world, we don’t remember the other one.
In my experience, dreams can be similar to a movie or television show. They can compress time, change perspective, and feature various special effects that would be hard to duplicate in reality.
This raises a chicken-and-egg question. Do dreams resemble movies and shows because we view so many movies and shows that they shape our expectations? Or do movies and shows resemble dreams because the creators of movies and shows all spend a third of their lives dreaming?
Some people wake up every morning remembering exactly what they’ve dreamed about. That’s not me. I’m lucky if I remember the broad outlines of one dream a month.
Still, that adds up over time, so over the course of this series I’m planning to dive into various genres of dream that I experience. Some of them may be familiar to you, and you may find some comfort in knowing that you aren’t the only one with such dreams. Others may be alien to you, providing you with an opportunity to subject this intrepid reporter to some armchair psychoanalysis.
I don’t have any actual photographs of my dreams, so I’ve tried to pick some images that I thought were evocative. Think of them as the background pattern you see when you close your eyes, before the dream begins.
Dreams… I find that they influence how I feel when I wake up. Sometimes they can feel exhausting.
Great subject, Mark. Very relatable. My dreams have always been as anxiety-laden as my “real life.” It’s hard to feel rested after one of those and I almost always remember them - more’s the pity. Here’s an interesting tidbit for you. As part of my anxiety dreams, I have a recurring one that I can’t figure out how to use my phone! Mostly I can’t make a call in an emergency because it’s stuck on games or movies I’m not interested in. I think the answer is that I need a “dumb” phone - the geriatric version!