Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Feb. 24, 2003: Dream Reruns

I have to be careful what I watch before I go to bed, because I often end up dreaming about it.

Last night, for example, I finally got around to watching West Wing, which I had taped on Wednesday. In it, Sam Seaborn was running for office in California. So naturally, I dreamt I was running for Congress.

This isn't as bad as some dreams I've had, to be certain.

One of the worst nightmares I ever had took place when I fell asleep on the couch after reading Edgar Allen Poe's "Message in a Bottle." I dreamt of being underwater in a murky lake and seeing ghastly, pale corpses floating around.

This is why I have a rule that, if I watch something scary, I have to watch something light and funny before going to bed, to clear it out of my head.

Sometimes these dreams aren't quite what you'd expect. For example, I fell asleep after reading a theory on the Black Dahlia murder, and dreamt that I was the investigator on the case. While I can't say it was a pleasant dream, it wasn't terrifying as it could have been.

This doesn't just apply to things I watch or read. Occasionally, I have dreams based on music or conversations I've had. After my dad showed me all the supposed clues in the Magical Mystery Tour album by The Beatles, which led many to believe that Paul McCartney was dead, I lay awake in bed, frozen with fear. Dad had turned the sound way up so I could hear the part where someone supposedly says, "I buried Paul." I kept hearing that ghostly voice again and again.

I was afraid to fall asleep in fear of what I would dream, but I honestly don't remember if I dreamt about it that night.

There are happier dreams, too, of this variety. I dreamt once that I was backstage when The Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan Show. Since I've only ever seen footage of this in black and white, the dream also was in black and white.

I used to wonder how anybody could dream in black and white, but now I think that perhaps the visual world they saw on a daily basis — television, newspaper photographs, and even family snapshots — affected their dream world. After all, your dreams take bits and pieces of what happened in the day, replay them, order them, make sense of them, file them away or solve problems. If you spend a good amount of time looking at black and white photos and black and white entertainment, I would think you would dream in black and white, too.

Someone might ask why I'm not more careful to watch things I'd like to dream about right before going to bed. First of all, I don't normally plan things out so carefully. And secondly, it doesn't always work that way. I could watch the most pleasant thing in the world, and that doesn't guarantee I'd dream about it.

Otherwise, I'd always watch movies about puppies and kittens or light comedies, or heartwarming musicals like The Sound of Music, which I also watched yesterday, having decided that I needed to watch some of the classic musicals. But there was no Maria Rainer in my dream, no von Trapp family singing "My Favorite Things." Instead, it was political advisors trying to suggest a campaign policy to me.

It seems that even in my dreams, I don't take the easy out.

Moral:
Never, ever fall asleep after reading Edgar Allen Poe.

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

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