Dream Maker

            In our dreams we are in the hands of a consummate artist, one armed with insight into our innermost being. The world the dream maker creates is a surrealistic landscape made up of impressions; there’s no story line, just events in the form of images.

            When intense negative emotions are wielded by the dream maker we can be engulfed in fear, or heartbroken, or raging, or burdened by a sense of loss. In most cases we know of the existence of the emotion we are made to experience. But we know it only from our perspective; dreams present a one-sided version. If we truly believe ourselves to be an innocent victim, and not see how we caused damage, a dream won’t show us our guilt. Though sometimes we are aware, but don’t face the truth. Then the dream can expose that which we wish to avoid. The piteous face will come to haunt us.

             The subconscious is another matter. There, for a few (usually the traumatized), lurks an event that is hidden from them. Yet the dream maker has access to the subconscious, and will perplex and terrify the dreamer.

            Since deep feelings provide a basis for dreams, and superficial ones don’t, love or hate relationships are fodder for dreams. Most of those who visit us in our sleep are people we felt strongly about; we can even measure someone’s importance by the role they play in our dreams. In cases in which they hurt us, they will do so again and again. Time may heal the wound, though the time may be decades. If we can come to terms with this person they may diminish or vanish altogether. Or appear in a gentler form.

            Have you ever wondered if you appear in the dreams of others, and cause them to suffer?  It doesn’t follow that you’re to blame. Most of us do collateral damage in the simple course of living our lives, making our choices. Yet there are some monsters who leave a trail of pain in their wake. Prison guards at concentration camps have surely loomed large in an untold number of nightmares.

            Nightmares raise the intensity level. They’re based on something shattering that happened to us. In the true nightmare we must relive it, and some people reach the point where they fear sleep. War — or any violent event — takes an extreme toll on one’s psyche. But psychological damage can be inflicted in the seemingly quiet confines of a household.

            We already know what plagues and pleases us, but we don’t always recognize the magnitude of that feeling. What is most elusive to us is rage. People are surprised at the violence they can express in a dream. They may believe themselves to be mild and peace-loving, but they find themselves battering and tearing and crushing. These dreams shake us to our core, because they reveal an aspect of ourselves we don’t want to acknowledge.

            The dream maker can also be kind: can offer us what we desire. It may be sex, love, companionship. But this is satisfying only to a degree. Our desires usually appear because we find them hard or impossible to attain in real life. So we awaken feeling the absence of what we had in the dream, and this saddens us.

            Some people have dreams of exhilaration — flying or running. But I believe these are limited to the young.

            Gentle-hearted people who have lived serene lives would seem to lack the subject matter to use in composing a disturbing dream. That said, they may have fears: illness, being alone. And who is free from anxiety and a sense of inadequacy? Thus the dreams of being naked in public, or lost on a strange street, or totally unprepared for a task.

            To sleep like a baby is to sleep without consciousness. When children reach the point where they possess language their dreams become a problem. Which brings up a perplexing question. In most cases a two-year-old has not had any terrifying experiences. So why is it so common for them to have terrifying dreams, ones from which they wake up screaming? Something is under the bed, in the closet, in the shadows. What is this something we seem to be born fearing, and which arises in the dreams of the innocent?

            It’s not only humans who dream. The sleeping dog with the twitching paw and the slight whimper is dreaming. Maybe he’s just chasing a rabbit. But he may be reliving a beating that has been inflicted on him.

            I’ve never read a scene in a book, or heard a piece of music, or seen a painting that captured the essence of a dream. They may stir emotions, but not replicate dreams. Even the surrealists working in these art forms  aren’t able to accomplish what our dream maker does. One medium — film — has the best chance, for our dreams are moving images that are played out in our minds in a film-like way. Though many directors have tried, Luis Bunuel came closest to conveying the dream state in Los Olvidados. I cannot think of another sequence like the one he delivers. He enters the mind of the sleeping boy and captures the spectral grotesqueness of a nightmare (as the mother slowly rises from her bed . . .). The boy is in the dream, and he reacts. It’s deeply unsettling, this few minutes of images.

            We don’t remember most of our dreams, or they stay with us only briefly. It’s the disturbing ones that tend to linger. And even when they fade we can’t get on with our day as if nothing happened. Something happened. The emotion that they provoked leaves its imprint. Sleep is meant to restore body and mind, and for most it does just that. Others are too often burdened by their dreams.

            The value of sleep is immense; all creatures must sleep. A form of torture is to deprive someone of sleep. Which makes this subject of dreams important. Sweet dreams, we say. That’s a kind offering. But how about no dreams at all? Or, rather, sleep in which the dream is lacking in emotional content. Because it leaves no memory it can be considered dreamless sleep. Eight hours of oblivion from the cares of our lives is a most precious gift.