Hello friends,
My dreams have always been vivid. My friends hate when I start a sentence with, “In my dream last night…” because they know it will get strange. Lately, I’ve been writing down tiny summaries of my dreams, poetic remembrances of experiences beyond words.
I dreamt a caterpillar crawled out of my mouth, taking all my hopes and dreams with it. Resting on my lip, it transformed into a butterfly. I wasn’t sad when it flew away. I was free.
I dreamt of fish swimming around with no heads. I neglected them, but they did not die. They adapted, like their brethren in the farthest depths of the ocean. A head is only helpful if you need to think.
I dreamt I had paper skin, birch bark thin, that glowed softly in the moonlight. A half dozen women gathered around me, drawn like moths to a porch lamp. I whispered to them of home, and we gathered together as coyotes cried in the distance.
I dreamt in black and white, unusual. I sat on the edge of a tiled pool. All around me, things unseen murmured in the pitch black. I picked up a penny from the bottom of the pool. It whispered the wish of the boy who tossed it. I picked up another, and it whispered as well.
I dreamt of live oaks, alive in my mind. They picked me up in their gnarled, sprawling branches. They cradled me in their ancient arms. Around us, the air was stagnant, like the hot breath of some great creature panting in my face. Breathing felt like drowning. All the while, the crickets chirped, a chant that never ceased. Below the droning hum, the oaks whispered secrets I could barely hear. Why do dreams always whisper?
I’ve always relished my time spent dreaming. Dreams feel infinite, unbound from the rules of the world. Perhaps they offer clues to breaking those rules, but they slip away with the darkness when we open our eyes. I wonder what else disappears when the sun rises. Magic gets caught in our eyelashes, and we wipe it away like it’s nothing. How much do we fail to see simply because we do not understand?
Leave your dreams in the comments. I want to know what you see in the dark.
Until next time,
Yardena
Weekend Potpourri
Here, have some serotonin
It’s World Cup season, so here’s a bit on the history of the word “soccer.” It was coined by—gasp—the English.
Here’s an alternate way to think about mental illness, along with a scientific look at why exercise can be a valuable treatment tool
Haley Nahman looks at whether the destigmatization of cosmetic work is helpful or just another symptom of the disease
Recommendation:
When writing about your dreams, never bother mentioning it was a dream or you're asleep. Taken from one of your own:
"I had paper skin, birch bark thin, that glowed softly in the moonlight. A half dozen women gathered around me, drawn like moths to a porch light. I whispered to them of home, and we gathered together as coyotes cried in the distance."
Expert level, describing that in real life to colleagues and friends:
"Last night I had paper skin, birch bark thin, that glowed softly in the moonlight..."
If you don't frame it as a dream, people attend to it with much the trust and expectation of a dream of their own. Announcing it's yours closes their experience of it :)