The Deep Meaning of a Dream

I had a dream this morning, just before I woke up. With my backpack on, I was walking through the Bavarian mountain village where I went to high school, looking for the book store at the centre of town. But it turned out it wasn't there any more. Then I was talking to a lady from the tourist information bureau, which happened to be in this little cottagey place next to where the bookstore was supposed to be, and I asked her when the next bus would leave so I could get back to the train station - but the buses, she said, were no longer running, either; they hadn't been for quite some time. Of course I hadn't been to the village in over twenty years, so I didn't know that. I think there was some other weird stuff in the dream, but I can't remember it; I just woke up.

Those of you who are into dream interpretation are probably salivating right now: what does it all mean? Deep, psychological, Freudian, spiritual and all that - or what? What. I'm afraid that the meaning of my dreams - and I have lots, all the time - is simply that the stuff I dream about is something I've thought about during the preceding day.

In this case, it had to do with the fact that yesterday I was at the local drug store, and they're changing ownership and are therefore clearing all their shelves and rearranging everything in the store. They've changed hands before, but usually all that happened was that the sign over the door had the name of a different drug store chain on it. This time, they're getting rid of most of their stock, presumably to start stocking the new chain's house brand, and they're no longer carrying the herbal iron tonic I went there to buy (the shelf it used to be on was full of dozens of jars of a food substitute weight loss product. I was offended.). And when I left the drug store, I saw a big sign on the video rental place next door: "Store Closing". It was one of the last holdouts of video rentals; all the big chains in town closed a few years ago. Alas, now we won't have this one any more, either; we'll be dependent on Youtube or the library for our entertainment. So there you have the reason why in my dream everything was closed or gone or cancelled.

As for why I was looking for that book store in the first place, just before going to sleep I was reading Goethe's "Sorrows of Young Werther". I haven't read it in thirty years, since grade 10, and my little yellow-covered paperback copy (published by Reclam, as all German required school readings are) came from that book store. It's got my teenaged scribblings in the margins ("S u D!" it says beside the passage where Werther first meets Lotte and is so smitten he can't even produce a coherent paragraph when he's trying to describe the experience to his friend Wilhelm. It is, of course, the perfect example of Sturm und Drang, the original emo culture.).

So there you have it: the deep meaning of my dream is to be found in bedtime reading and errands run in the afternoon. Oh, and once I got up, while I was consuming my breakfast toast, I booted up Google and did some research: the bookstore in that village is still in existence, and so is the bus line that runs to and from the train station. So the dream wasn't even prophetic, not in the slightest bit. I'm glad.

Life, the Universe, and Deep Meanings of Dreams. What have you dreamt recently?

Untitled

Last night, as I was lying awake at 4:00 AM, I composed a really cool blog post in my head. It  was all there - the topic, the phrases, the witty wordplay and underhandedly profound conclusion. And do you think I could remember now what it was about? Nope. Not on your life. It was really interesting, though...

So instead, you're stuck with yet another untitled post. One that's about not much at all. Profundity was lost sometime in that space between 4:00 and 6:00 AM, when my alarm rang (curses upon its cogwheeled innards!) and pulled me out of a dream in which I had lost two of the diamonds from my engagement ring and both the side pieces that hold up the raised center part. But wait - my engagement ring doesn't have a raised center part; the diamonds are sunk into a channel flush with the rest of the ring. Well, go figure. That's the kind of dream it was, not particularly sensible. And for that I gave up a brilliant blog post.

Leaving things untitled can have a number of reasons. Sometimes you just can't think of a title. But there are other times when you have to leave the title off not because you cannot find one, but because there are too many - and none of them fit. When I tell you that I painted one picture called "Very Small Ink People Playing In a Field of Colour", what do you think it's about? Exactly. (It's for sale. $30, and it's yours, frame and all. No, really, if you want it, drop me a mail.) But if I tell you I've got a sculpture called "Women", what does that tell you? Quite. It doesn't really begin to cover it. And so, for the time being, it's actually called "Untitled". Or maybe "Untitled (Women)", to distinguish it from the other "Untitled" stuff I've got kicking around.

And sometimes, whatever the work is, it has no title. Just like me - my friend said I'm a piece of work, but I'm not titled. Other than "Mrs", of course. But I'm not a Duchess, or Marchioness, or even a Countess (one wonders why that's not an Earless. Probably because it would be misread as "lacking ears", rather than "wife of an earl".). I'm not even a Lady - well, I occasionally try to be a lady, but I'll never be A Lady. Unless my man manages to snabble a knighthood for services to the Crown I shall have to remain untitled. And that's quite alright - because, like with my sculpture, none of the titles really fits. Or they all do, but none really sums it up. And they don't come with a coronet, anyway, so I can do without them.

And then there's the times when "Untitled" is the title. Like today.

Life, the Universe, and the Untitled. We're in good company.

Untitled (Women)

A Dream and a Coffee Date

I had a dream last night that my blog suddenly got famous. See, what happened was, I got a Scholastic magazine in the mail, and was reading it, and suddenly, there was this article about blogs, and it listed mine as an example of a really great blog! It was a magazine for teachers, too. I was shocked, and very excited, as I had had no idea Scholastic would do such a thing. I didn't even have any idea Scholastic had teacher's magazines. Which, of course, they don't, so I didn't actually get one in the mail and they didn't advertise my blog in it; it was just my dream-addled brain that had me thinking so. There was also something in that article about some of the other things I do, like write stories, which they couldn't know about as I'd never written of them online, and there was the consideration of changing the whole background of the blog to bright turquoise, which is a deeply significant colour in one of those stories I've written.

Don't worry, I won't go turquoise. My eyes couldn't stand it. I don't even like blogs which are white-on-black writing, I find them really difficult to read. But Scholastic is still a great company, even if they don't put out teacher's magazines in which they advertise my blog. Maybe I should suggest it to them.

On another note, Steve and I had coffee with my friend Bonnie Heather yesterday. Well, Bonnie had coffee, Steve and I had a Glasgow Fog (that's the same as a London Fog, except made by a person with a Scots background). I got a sneak peek at Bonnie's new painting, which is really great; the person who commissioned is going to be very happy with it, I'm sure. And we talked about Art, Life, the Universe, and Everything, so it was just what a coffee date should be. (Even without me drinking coffee. Which I don't, ever; I just don't like the taste. But that's another topic. Wait - there was something in that famous-blog-dream about me drinking coffee, too! Which just goes to show that the whole thing really was only imaginary. Too bad.)

Here is Steve, trying to see if there's any Glasgow Fog left in the cup. And afterwards, he was comatose; Horatio was not impressed. I guess Earl Grey tea, steamed milk and sugar syrup don't agree with stuffed bears.

Life, the Universe, and Dreams. Maybe Steve would have been better off having coffee?