Dreams

Dreams….

I’ve always been lazy and could stay in bed for most of a mid-winter storm or for a humid, 95-degree plus day.

But, career, children, wife – name your pick – curtailed that personally enjoyable activity from my bachelor days of 100 years ago.

But there came just such a day during this past, miserably humid August 2018 and my wife indulged me. She let me sleep.

Well – she didn’t let me stay in bed all day. But it was at least 10:00AM when I felt the gentle nudge that awoke me.

“You had such a big smile on you as you were sleeping, I hated to wake you up,” she said. “Were you dreaming about me?” she asked.
I said, “Yes. Of course!”
“Yeah, right,” she opined, hit me with the pillow and left the room to go about her business.

I’m not sure how much I dream these days.

By that I mean, days, weeks can go by and it seems as if I’ve not dreamt. But something will happen that triggers a recollection and I find myself realizing, “I dreamt about that the other evening.”

From what I can discover, the average person has three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven. But, most dreams are immediately or quickly forgotten.
Dreams tend to last longer as the night progresses. During a full eight-hour night sleep, most dreams occur in the typical two hours of what’s known as REM or Rapid Eye Movement.

Opinions about the meaning of dreams have changed over the years and shifted through time and culture. Some theories state dreams assist in memory formation and problem solving. Some say they are simply random brain activities.

Sigmund Freud (the guy who was always smoking that pipe!) thought dreams reveal insight into hidden desires and emotions. Other theories include those that suggest that dreams assist in memory formation, problem solving. Or they may simply be a product of random brain activation.

So, I don’t know what to make of my own at all. (lol!)

Unsure what to make of my dreams.

Sometimes, in my dreams, I’m running, swimming, bicycling, skiing... And that’s what was happening that particular morning when I slept-in.

The odd thing about all that is that I was never particularly athletic. I’m a guitarist and I love literature and that’s where most of my efforts have gone. Occasional games of tennis or softball or racquetball were more than enough for me.

Except when I was a teenager and we played tackle football without any equipment in a public park in New York City. Granted, we waited until it had rained or the snow had melted to achieve the kind of conditions one needs to play tackle without protective safety equipment.

But you still walked away with some fairly significant black eyes, scars and bruises.

So, it’s that much odd-er (is that even a word?) that these dreams involve so much motion, athleticism – so much activity - that I’m no longer capable of, because of COPD.

And yet, when I awake and find my oxygen cord draped across my side of the bed and the concentrator chugging away, I’m not really sad. A little angry at myself for all those years of smoking, yes, but not sad.

Because somehow, that feeling of uninhibited motion, recollections of walks for miles and miles, is in me.

The sensations have transferred themselves to my dreams.

And that’s enough.