Don't Write About Your Dreams
Last night, I had a dream that I haven't had in years. It's a recurring dream that haunted me often throughout my adulthood.
The dream is always set in a cityscape I don't recognize, sometimes with strange features, futuristic or apocalyptic, a world with no markers to orient myself. For years, I'd find myself lost in a city like this while I slept, trying to get home. In the dream, I would always walk toward some kind of public transportation, digging my hands into my pockets for a bus pass. The whole plot of the dream was about me discovering I had no bus pass, then no money, no keys, no wallet, nothing at all. Slowly, I would realize I didn't know where I lived. I'd wander through the rest of the dream searching for a solution, a path, a start to an answer, and never finding it. Eventually, I'd wake up from this wandering, happy to be in my own bed.
In writing, there is a general rule not to write about dreams. The thinking is that the reader can’t invest in something that isn’t “real” and won't really care. You bump your reader out of the story when you write about a character's dream, even when you're writing nonfiction and that character is you.
I tell my students this rule and often I end up reading something soon after with a dream in the text. Like all writing rules, there is always an example of someone successfully breaking it. I tell my students this, too.
I admit, I generally find my eyes glazing over if someone is telling me about their dream or if I am reading about a dream on the page.
And yet, here I am, writing about a dream.
The dream I had last night was one of hundreds of examples of that recurring dream but this time, I pulled a set of keys from my pocket. The first time I ever found keys during this dream. Even in the dream, I remember thinking, I can't believe I have these keys.
I've had a lot of time to think about this recurring dream and what it means and it's pretty obvious. I moved constantly in my twenties and early thirties. Not just to new apartments but to new cities. I was on the run. I was trying to outrun myself. In my addiction, I sometimes moved for what they call a geographic cure. But the saying is true: wherever you go, there you are.
But dreaming a set of keys into this familiar nightmare last night made me think that I have finally stopped running from myself and now I am home, comfortable in my own skin at last.
Do you know how many songs there are about dreaming? It's a lot. I looked up the Fleetwood Mac song "Dreams" on youtube and the first comment below the video said, "My parents fought over this album in the divorce." Everyone from Beck to Elvis Presley to Blondie has sang about dreams. Dreams may not work in writing but they definitely have a home in music.
Do you have recurring dreams? I'd love to hear about it.
Thank you for reading, especially for reading about my dreams.
Captain Obvious
I remember a knight in armor outside my bedroom door at night. In the backyard, I’d look down from my window and see an American Indian with a feather solemnly standing staring at our house. After my father died, he would visit me in my dreams. I remember asking him oncewho is outside my bedroom door and outside the window? He told me they are there just to protect you, but if they make you nervous, I can ask them to go away. I said they don’t make me nervous, but it is something I think about every night. He said maybe it’s best they take a few steps away. I didn’t think much about it when I woke up. As the days went by, I realized they weren’t there anymore. And now I miss them. Not so much the knight because he would just stand there facing the door, opening the door, I would expect to see him. The Indian I do miss. He would stand solemnly by the pool wrapped in a blanket looking up at my second story window. I don’t know why this never occurred to me before, I’ve been looking at old Christmas photos and noticed my little boy pajamas. One with armored knights and another pair, my favorite, with feathered Indians. The visitations stopped when I quit wearing pj’s.
Love how your unconscious has given you the gift of validating your healing and hard work. Thanks for sharing this dream. I have a micro memoir about a recurring dream in my WIP. You'll have to let me know if your eyes glaze over...lol!