There is a point when I am waking up in the middle of a dream in which I don’t know what is the dream and what is my imagination. My eyes are still closed and suddenly, I can control the events within my dream. I must be awake and imagining a finale to the dream so that I’m not left feeling like I left the movie theater before the climax.

They say dreams are the windows of the soul–take a peek and you can see the inner workings, the nuts and bolts.  – Henry Bromel, Northern Exposure, The Big Kiss, 1991

Last weekend, I had a dream about a teacher and some students in detention. I have no idea where the dream ends and my imagination begins. I guess it doesn’t matter. The memory from both were both wholly created within my mind. For some reason, I feel like I’m not responsible or even own my dreams, whereas my imagination is my own. It is a source of pride and shame, whereas my dreams are merely interesting fodder for talk

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.  – George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)

When I was a teenager, we shared the bathroom. My mom, Stacey and I would all be together in the bathroom getting ready. The schedule for the showers went as follows: Me, Mom, Stacey. I would shower first, then move on to the makeup vanity. Mom would shower next and by the time she was done, it was time for me to do my hair while she put on her makeup. Stacey would stagger out of our bedroom right before Mom’s shower, but she needed food before she could be civil, so she ate breakfast before finally coming back upstairs to shower while I did my hair and Mom put on her makeup.

A schedule defends from chaos and whim.  – Annie Dillard

We were three women in a bathroom every school morning. Every morning we talked about our dreams. If we didn’t remember our dreams, we wouldn’t talk about them, of course, but almost every day one of the three of us remembered a dream. Stacey’s dreams were long rambling and incredibly detailed. I remember once she started telling her dream, I stepped downstairs for just a minute that turned into thirty minutes and when I came back, she was still talking about the same damn dream. We didn’t get to analyze her dreams. There wasn’t time. We just listened.

Dreams are postcards from our subconscious, inner self to outer self, right brain trying to cross that moat to the left. Too often they come back unread: “return to sender, addressee unknown.” That’s a shame because it’s a whole other world out there–or in here depending on your point of view.  – Dennis Koenig and Jordan Budde, Northern Exposure, Roots, 1991

Most of the time, we were able to analyze. It was like a game to play every morning. “What do you think this dream means?” We didn’t base important life decisions on the analysis. It was all for fun. It was like a parlor game for the bathroom and we played it every morning. With three active minds, there was always a dream to play with.

Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.  – John Updike (1932 – )

I miss that game. Mike can’t play it. Sometimes he tries to play it with me, but he doesn’t have ten years practice like I do. He takes the analysis too seriously. It’s like he’s worried that I’ll make a life changing decision based on the random firing of neurons. I don’t even know how to teach him to play the game correctly. After thirteen years of marriage, I don’t think it’s going to happen. Maybe I should just call my sister every morning so we can go through our dreams together. Of course then, the phone call would be two hours every time she wants to tell me one of her dreams?