Lily Briscoe

At first I was pretty apprehensive about posting my dreams online for all to see. My Mom and I talk about our dreams all the time, but other than that, I don’t discuss them. As I was getting ready to write my first blog entry, I worried that posting my often turbulent dream experiences would expose me as some sort of a psychotic nut job. Thankfully, by studying various theories and approaches to dreams and reading others’ blogs, I feel more comfortable recounting them. Prior to this class, I would probably have agreed with the Freudian view about how all dreams have a meaning. But now I see the dream as a multi-faceted state; not all dreams have some deeper significance to me anymore. I don’t have to judge my life based on a dream evaluation. It's also made me appreciate the workings of the brain. I probably won't continue to blog my dreams, but I'm definitely going to keep a dream journal by my bedside. I think it will be amusing (and perhaps illuminating) to reread these entries after five or ten years. Well, it's getting late, so I'm gonna get some shut-eye. See you in my dreams!

I’m sitting in my creative writing class, feeling oddly impatient. The class ends, I gather my books, and head out. I’m not on the QC campus. Rather, after I leave the building I find myself on Roosevelt Avenue underneath the #7 elevated train. Instead of hopping on a bus to go home, I decide to take a long walk to clear my head because I’m in a bad mood. After walking for a long time (I can’t remember much about this part), I decide to cross the street and head home.

The bus stop’s glass shelter is so large it’s almost a greenhouse. I walk inside, and find that I’m not the only one waiting for a ride. There is a college class taking place inside. And wouldn’t you know—the course was about dreams! I tell them that I’ve taken a similar course at Queens College. I’m talking excitedly, but none of the students share my enthusiasm. They basically ignore me as their teacher, a large, bald, stocky man, lectures them about how to write in a dream journal. I want to interrupt and regale them with my class’s experiences writing about our dreams. The teacher is really condescending and treating the students as if they are kindergarteners. Unfortunately, the next bus won’t be arriving until 1:00 AM, so I’m stuck.

Finally, the dark bus arrives and I walk up the stairs eagerly, with a fistful of coins for my fare. I’m so anxious to get moving that I end up paying $7 for my fare. But I don’t care. I just want to get home. After the class follows me into the bus, we drive off. It’s dawn.

My family and I are staying at a hotel. This is strange, because we’ve stopped having family vacations years ago after we all grew up. Anyway, we’re vacationing in a city that’s being targeted by some unknown enemy (way to pick a vacation spot, huh?).
There have been raids in the past, specifically poison gas attacks, so we’ve all been instructed that when the siren goes off, we are all to vacate our rooms and assemble on the patio outside. Apparently, that will save us from choking to death on the poison fumes. However, you only have thirty seconds to get out.

Sure enough, the siren sounds, and we all scramble out of our rooms. The hallway is much longer than it was before, it seems to lengthen as we pass through it. I’m counting down the seconds as I run through the passage. 19. . . 18 . . . 17. . . 16.. . Then I realize that I’ve not counted fast enough; I’m out of time. I take a huge breath and keep running. Finally, I arrive outside, gasping for air.

One by one, each of my family members makes it out okay. But the family across the hall from us hasn’t come out yet. I take out a telescope with x-ray vision and look through the walls. I see the silhouettes of the other family as they choke and writhe, as if they are drowning.

What I feel is a strange mix of horror and relief. I’m traumatized by what I saw happen, but I’m also feeling satisfied and happy that my family has survived.
Now all we have to do is wait until the all-clear sounds so we can go back to our hotel rooms to sleep.

Before 9-11, I used to have strange dreams, but they never really involved anything on a catastrophic level.
But since then, I’ve had several dreams that were apocalyptic in nature: bombings, warfare, mass death. Is it just psychological, a reflection of latent paranoia, or is my brain reacting to what I’ve observed about current violent events by taking the content and images and replaying them during dreams?

Here’s just one example. I’m in bed, trying to get to sleep. Opposite to my bed is a window. The shades are up. In waking life, planes fly over all the time. I’ve lived here most of my life so I’m used to the noise. I can even see the planes through that window sometimes. In the dream, I’m looking out the window when I see a plane approaching. It looks like it’s on a direct course to my window, and as it comes closer and closer I scream because it’s going to crash into the house. But at the last second, the plane flies off. But before I draw a sigh of relief, I see lights in the distance moving steadily towards me. I freak out, because they’re going to crash into the house or drop a bomb on us.

I run downstairs, as if I won’t be hurt if I’m not in my bedroom. After a while downstairs, panicking with the rest of my family, there is a huge explosion. I run upstairs to my room to see what’s happened. My window and part of the wall is completely blown off. Other than that, the damage is minimal. But the explosion has set a fire, which starts to spread rapidly. I grab some of my things and run out.

The rest of my family has already gathered outside. We’re going to get in our car and drive somewhere safe. Our neighbors have already started packing their things and loading them into vehicles.

What is it about teeth dreams? Why do so many people have them? What’s so damn special about teeth? Why don’t people commonly dream about their eyelids or fingernails?
I’ve had my share of teeth dreams. A lot of people report that their teeth fall off, but in my dreams, I pull mine out.

Here’s one I had a few days ago:
I feel a dull ache from one of my teeth. My gums are inflamed and sore. The tooth feels chipped and crumbly, so I decide to get it over with and yank it out myself. I tug at my tooth in slow, smooth movements, but it’s not working so well. Finally, after a long time of pulling, the tooth starts to come out. But it’s a lot longer than I thought. When I finally get the tooth out of my aching gums, I realize that it’s the size of a sabretooth!
I stare at it in horror, feeling like a freak and that I’ve disfigured myself. The pain has subsided, but I know that I’ve got to see a dentist and it’s going to cost me an arm and a leg.

One of my neighbor's dogs, a Yorkshire Terrier named Tequila, has been lost for about a month now. I have a dog of my own, so I know how upset my neighbor must be about it. Anyway, I've been keeping my eyes peeled for her.
Last week, I dreamed that me and my dog Rocky were playing in the park. For no particular reason, I remembered my neighbor's lost dog, and started to call out her name. "Tequila! Tequila! Where are you?!" This continued for awhile. The park turned into a beach. Then I thought I heard something. I told Rocky to sniff out the little dog. "Come on, boy. You can find her. Use that sniffer of yours. You're a hunting dog."
There were a row of bushes on the boardwalk. I suspected that this might be where Tequila was hiding. "All right, Rocky. Go get her."
And my dog ran off his leash and jumped on a bush. Out scampered the little Yorkie! I cheered and wondered whether I would get a reward for finding the precious pup.

I know I should have written this earlier, but I've been swamped with assignments. Anyway, the second practice exam made me panic a little. I thought the first one was easy, so I was expecting the second one to be likewise, but it was tougher. I realized that I had been overconfident in preparing for the exam so far, and I had to refocus my efforts. In retrospect, I'm glad that the practice test was harder because it pushed me to study more. Now that the honors exam has come and gone, I realize that it was beneficial for me to lose a little confidence.

Okay, I hope this doesn't freak anybody out, but last night I had a dream that someone in our class died. I don't want to say who, because that would just make that person uncomfortable. Anyway, I dreamed that I was on the blogs when I read a posting that this person died. I was completely shocked and saddened. Everyone was posting comments about how he or she would be missed and how awful the whole situation was. I don't recall exactly how this person died, but someone on the blog mentioned that he or she had a smoking habit. Another blogger said something about our honors exam: "We shouldn't postpone the honors exam. He/She would have wanted us to move forward." In waking life, I do wish that the honors exam would be moved to a later date. That's what I really think the dream is about. It is less about a classmate dying and more about how the honors exam is causing me anxiety.

I took ballet classes when I was twelve. It was my first experience with ballet dancing, and I was a horrible dancer. Even so, I attended every class and performed in the year-end recital. Needless to say, I didn't return the following year. Anyway, I've had a couple of dreams that I'm back in ballet class. These dreams always seem to involve a long complicated dance routine that my class and I are performing in front of a large audience. I am the only dancer that is messing up. I trip over my feet, wobble, and fall on my ass time after time, but no one seems to notice. I can hardly remember a single step of the routine, so I'm just copying the others. I feel so embarassed and humiliated, but I keep on dancing. I know I have to finish the routine for the recital.

When I was in high school, poetry terrified me because I did not know how to talk about it. I was too scared to try to interpret a poem because I was worried that I would be way off. Now that I know that meaning is just one element of a poem, I have more confidence in writing about it. I find it so much easier to write about poetry now that I know how to analyze a poem’s form and style. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I’m good at scansion. I like to look at a poem piece by piece, structure by structure to apreciate the poet’s artistry. The power of a poem is more than its meaning. It’s in each individual carefully-selected word. I think that when writing about poetry, it helps to be patient. Don’t try to rush into it; let the ideas mingle in your mind for a bit before you start making judgments. And above all, don’t be afraid. I’ve learned that if you feel like poetry is intimidating, that it’s some sublime, untouchable piece of genius, you’ll never feel comfortable with analyzing or writing about it.