DREAMS
I’m not sure if it’s the rich foods I’ve been indulging in on the road or the European cultural input but for the last few nights I’ve had the most vivid dreams.
An example:
I’m spending what seems like hours trying to pack a bicycle for a steep, uphill ride from a studio I worked at years ago to a house on a hill that looks like a Disney castle. With the sunlight bursting from behind a cloud it’s heaven on earth. The only thing missing is animated bluebirds helping me pack.
So the destination is glorious. The transportation, not so much.
The bicycle is not the modern, multi geared, powerful brakes and comfortable foam seated beauty that’s in my garage at home. It’s a rusty old Schwinn that I might have owned as a boy.
Wait a minute. I’ve done my share of therapy and spent some quality time on the analyst couch. Let’s have a look at this.
The castle on the hill has to be symbolic of the golden opportunities that lay before me. Tracey and I have the book coming in September and that’s beyond exciting. It’s a chance for us to share the gifts of recovery that have saved my life in a whole new voice. I’m also working on a musical with some multi- talented people and there’s an animated film with two new Paulie songs coming in October.
OK. Bingo. The animated film may explain the Disney like structure. The musical is based on a dark fairy tale. Another “aha” moment. But why am I taking a bicycle, symbolic of my childhood poverty, when my car sit’s two parking spaces away? Oh, that’s right. The car has somebody’s animals in the back seat. They aren’t my pets. Sweet puppies but I can’t take the car until the animal’s owners come to collect them.
I won’t bore you with the details of my own self-analysis. Rather I’d like to point out what a magnificent bit of factory equipment the Big Amigo included in the minds we’re born with. A mental package that offers a way to work thru unresolved childhood fears, unconscious residue of feeling unworthy and the dramas of the day. And all handled while we’re sleeping. Nice, huh?
The emotional tuning and release provided by our dreams and nightmares are invaluable. And the opportunity to examine their meaning in the light of day a great asset. “The unexamined life is not worth living” according to Socrates. Spot on Monsieur. What dreams may come are a remarkable resource and a way to continue that work.
In the end of my dream I’m given a ride by an extremely productive and gifted co-writer who’ll remain nameless. Clearly symbolic of this amazing literary ride she’s made possible. There’s a good chance the pups are hers as well. Or maybe it’s time for me to find a Fido.
As unlikely as the content of our dreams may be, they can be as beautiful as master works of art and stunning in their intense realism. Even in my drug addled past I never experienced color, depth of field or texture as rich as what I’ve witnessed in my dreams.
The combinations of people have been remarkably inventive. I’ve played golf with my high school drama teacher and Obama in the same foursome. John Wayne has given me a haircut the night before I had an important lunch with a Republican Senator.
Let’s hear it for that miracle between our ears. Inventive enough to conceive of Infinity and stable enough to consider the inevitability of death and yet we have not gone mad. That’s some powerful equipment. We’re provided with the neurological necessities needed for our sanity to survive and with a few tragic exceptions we do all right.
It brings me to a familiar conclusion. That for all its travails, terrors and trauma, life is a gift. We cling to it as we approach its end with strength far beyond what you’d think possible. We witness valiant last stands from tired or broken bodies. And as we lay our heads upon that pillow nightly as surely as our skin cells will knit together cuts and scratches, our unconscious mind will work to heal a hidden injury or offer sweet relief to problems we don’t even know we have.
One more time I’m led to the land of Gratitude and Trust
Paul Williams is a singer, songwriter, actor, recovery advocate and has been a fixture on the American cultural scene since the seventies. His book Gratitude and Trust is now available.