Dreams are Such Tricky Creatures

I do not think there is anything worse than a teaching stress-dream. Towards the end of my time teaching at Brown, I had several awful dreams where I was falling into a pit in the main lobby of the school. In one, Lauri Wade, a veteran and stellar educator, offered me a beer as I tripped into the hole and when I fell, she tried to pull me out. I ended up buried in darkness. She was sad. Our new administrator and her hyenas could be heard laughing.

My dream the other night has me perplexed with a new tizzy, but I smile at this because dreams can be analyzed and insightful. I love to dream and hate when I don't. I wasn't sleeping so well and know it was because my brain is again wrestling with the plethora of academic articles about what truth actually is supposed to be. When I can't sleep, it usually is because my mind is processing new information that isn't making sense to my interpretation of the world.

My sleep that night was short. Even so, it was vivid. The dream I had was of me entering college and unpacking in a dorm. I entered the cubicle room of white with only my pillow and a few clothes. Nothing else. There was a lot of noise as other students were coming in, and that is when it occurred to me I'd probably get a roommate. I though, oh great. This young kid ran in my room and wondered if I'd seen this toy he had stolen from him as a prank. Someone on the floor had taken all of his things and put his property in all the empty rooms. I nodded to a dresser and he said, "Thanks," while grabbing a wind up toy (hmmm). He was such a puppy dog spirit, and I was disillusioned with his presence. I was once there and understood his enthusiastic spazziness, but my way of being was more introverted and reserved.

Then the actual roommate came. He was an every day guy, and the sort you'd expect to join the medieval club and major in engineering. He looked scared to death while his parents were ecstatic about moving him in. His father looked at me but didn't notice I was a good eighteen years older than his son and wondered where all my stuff was. I was thinking to myself, I am in the wrong room. I'm too old for this. Then his mom and brothers began piling the room with all his stuff. He had gadgets galore, boxes of clothes, his own cabinet to store items and lamps. I excused myself and left. All the chaos of jargon, excitement and newness that energized the room didn't make me sad, but made me oddly calm.

I walked out of the dorm that was alive with youth into a large grassy area with no markers or people. I just walked and thought to myself, "I don't need anything in my room. I just want my mind whereever I go." I felt complete, alone, and in silence.

Then my alarm went off. See my Valentine's Day Post, 2008, to hear what this is like.