Dreams Without Regrets

They are interesting phenomena — these dreams without regrets.  A brief example from today’s nap dream. Remember dreams are incredibly fluid in terms of the “real world” that surrounds them. OK, in today’s dream I had been charged with making sure that - hmm, the name escapes me at the moment. She was a miniature dachshund that my first wife and I  had sort of inherited from her owner. Her name will come to me.  I want to call her Gretel, but that may well be just “nationality breed association.” (No, wait! Wait! Her name was Nigel! Thank you, 4 AM memory goddess!) Anyhow, I had been instructed by my current wife’s stepdaughter to keep the puppy from eating something - maybe a plate of cookies?

An interesting point was that my current wife’s stepdaughter had not been made aware of these instructions. Partially, perhaps, because the stepdaughter and wife number one had never actually met in “real life.” Interesting how folks who never met in “real life” have no trouble interacting with each other in “dream world,” - completely unbothered by those “unreal - real” conflicts. 

Anyhow, the Nigel ate the forbidden fruit, or the forbidden sandwiches, or the forbidden whatever, while I was napping. But neither the current stepdaughter nor the previous wife held the other responsible, in the dream, for Nigel’s behavior, nor, strangely, did my somnolent culpability come up. Then I woke up.

There is a message in here somewhere. Perhaps related to my long-standing assertion about snoring - that being that one cannot be held responsible for what one does while asleep. Perhaps the corollary is that dreaming is a “blameless state.” Related, somehow, to the notion of “brother, you can’t go to jail for what you are thinking.” Or, by extension, “Shut up and let the dog eat the cookies.” After all it’s just a dream, right?

Interesting however, is the fact that folks who never met in “real life” have no trouble interacting in “dream world.” Anyhow, Nigel ate the dream-based cookies, apparently with great enjoyment. And, also interestingly, nobody cared. The dog ate the cookies. Yes. That is so. Nobody said “Bad dog!” Nobody expressed disappointment that I had failed to prevent the great cookie consumption. As a matter of fact, the cookies disappeared without so much as wrinkling the ephemeral fabric of the dream. And perhaps that is the lesson of dreaming:

The world of dreaming is, well, perhaps not so much value-free, as it is blameless. It is a world where “you can’t go to jail for what you’re dreaming.” You cannot be held accountable for your dream. The dream can still touch you. It can still make you laugh or cry. But you are the dreamer, not the dream. In our waking judicial system, truth is the ultimate defense. While sleeping, it is the various decrees of the dream state.