The Interpretation of Dreams

This is a serious post, so let's not have any monkey business. Uh, yeah. Sorry, Siggy old buddy. I have to admit, I did sort of steal the title from what may have been Sigmund Freud's greatest work, The Interpretation of Dreams. But, hey, he wrote a bunch of stuff. He can spare one title, right? *cough* Thanks, Siggy.

Dreams are interesting things. A hundred years after Siggy published his book, we're still studying them. And there's lots of confusion and disagreement about what dreams mean. Just ask me. I'll contradict everything you say and then I'll try to confuse you. See, what did I tell you?

Lots of studies have been done on dreaming, including one in 1978 on the effects of brain damage on dreaming. The idea was to chart the dreams of a bunch of monkeys after driving nails into their heads. Only, so many monkeys died they gave up. (sorry if you were eating)

If you follow that link to wiki you'll find another link at the bottom of their page to something called The Dream and Nightmare Laboratory in Montreal. Don't tell me you wouldn't have clicked on that. But you can see it got me nowhere. I guess if you want decent health care you really DO have to go to Canada. Unless you're a monkey, that is . . .

While I was facing this impasse, my daughter saved me and my car quite a few miles by suggesting that I google this laboratory instead. We discovered that it was struck by lightning twenty years ago in a freak thunderstorm, killing everyone inside -- and their bodies were never found.

Blah, blah, blah. Okay, I made that up. Maybe I've seen too many TV shows? The true story is quite a bit funnier. What I found was a former employee of the laboratory who's offering books, workshops, and internet classes promising "online dream mastery."

Can't you see THAT on my resume? Or at least it would be something to impress people at parties. When there was a lull in the conversation I could simply ask, "did I tell you that I'm an online dream master?" (fill in sounds of crickets chirping)

What is an online dream master, anyway? How is that different from an offline dream master? It's worth asking. Smart people like Siggy might think so. After all, we're still wondering what our dreams mean and how to interpret them.

Witness the popularity of someone like Charles McPhee, author, former radio talk show host and founder and president of Ask the Dream Doctor. I'd like to be founder and president of something, too! Hmmmm. Maybe I'll call it "I Am Wonderful."


Do you think I'm dreaming? What do you think about dreams? Have you had any interesting dreams lately?

Stranger Things Have Happened . . .

You may have noticed that the Stranger is not interested in disclosing much personal information about himself. Aha! If you answered this question in the affirmative than you have been paying waaay too much attention. I'll let it pass, though. Especially since I'm going to make an exception to that practice today by telling you that I've gone back to school.

Now, this disclosure does have a purpose. It's to warn you about what's coming. The Stranger, you see, has decided to study psychology. In fact, he's pursuing a master's in psychology. This means that he will soon be a master OF psychology. Think of psychology as a tall-masted whaling boat on the high seas. Now think of me as the bearded captain in a rain slicker and short-brimmed cap puffing a pipe in the quarterdeck.

Now, think of yourselves as mutineers. That shouldn't be too difficult. You're armed only with table legs, pewter knives, and scrub brushes, since your farsighted captain has locked everything else away. You're planning to sieze the ship and change our course for someplace more interesting -- like Hawaii or the Caribbean, perhaps? Forget it.

That metallic scraping noise is the sound of the key in the lock outside your door. Heheh. You're going to sit there and whittle a backscratcher out of the table leg with a butter knife while I read aloud from The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud. What's so terrible about that? It's only 471 pages. Now, where was I . . .