To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

An interesting (if ultimately unsatisfying) article about sleep in this week's TIME magazine. Though there are more refined theories, scientists apparently still don't agree on why we dream, or even why we sleep. (Did you know that dolphins sleep with half their brain, the other half monitoring swimming and breathing, then switch sides? Wild.) Anyway, their is increased interest in slow-wave sleep and how it aids in learning.

I was more interested in dreams, which were dismissed by most scientists as pretty much meaningless: "random recycling of bits and pieces of the previous day's events." I beg to differ. None of the vivid and disturbing dream I had last night happened yesterday.

I was in a huge hall with a glass, vaulted ceiling. In fact it reminded me of the pool deck (with retractable glass roof) of the vast Holland America cruise ship I was on a couple years ago, except there was a big stairway going down to it and a balcony around the perimeter. And on the floor was an array of weight equipment. As is typical of my dreams, there were bright colors, detailed imagery, powerful emotions, and mulitple senses. This gym was full of people working out. I was on the balcony, looking down, and I noticed my former assistant (and ex-Marine) Ken down there. This was strange because Ken is in Denmark, and he doesn't work out. In the dream it didn't seem strange though, and I had the feeling I had seen him there before. Someone appeared at my side and said "Why don't you go down and talk to him, you guys were friends, and since he's apparently back in town, maybe he'll come work for you again." I was surprised this hadn't already occurred to me, and headed down with a little trepidation, since why hadn't he tried to contact me if he was back in town?

I approached him and he was huge. Ken is a tall guy, but not in particularly great shape (he was proud of the little gut he was getting before he left). Now he still had the gut but he had massive muscles, and seemed taller. He was friendly enough but seemed a little arrogant and condescending (things Ken definitely is not). Then the next thing I knew, this woman pulled me aside. She pushed me onto a chaise lounge (the place was changing) and while an older couple and a young woman (who I assumed to be Ken's wife -- who was stationed in Denmark and the reason he left) approached him. While they talked, the woman who pulled me over (an attractive, slender young black woman with a huge afro and wearing a bright orange leotard) began to whisper that I should not have come, and that I would only make trouble for myself and Ken if I kept trying to talk to him. She continued, telling me that Ken's parents did not approve of 'my kind of people' (meaning gay) and that him just talking to me would cause problems.

All the time she was talking, she was running her fingertip along my lips in a gesture which was supposed to look seductive to others, but it was quite clear to me for some reason that she was threatening me somehow.

By now Ken and his wife and parents had moved to a huge buffet along the side of the room. I was afreaid of this woman, and that Ken wouldn't speak to me, but I decided that I would try anyway, But then my dream turned into one of those strange sequences, where things keep getting in my way. As I walked towards the buffet, it kept moving further away, and the weight equipment was replaced by banquet tables covered with dirty dishes. The next thing I knew I was alone in the room, with the tables and dishes.

Then there was a derivative sequence involving me and a dishwasher and a small swimming pool; when I leaned over the pool and my gym locker key (that I wear around my neck on a bead chain) dipped into the water, suddenly the suction from the adjacent dishwasher threatened to pull me into the pool and drown me.

I still feel kind of out-of-sorts, and can't get this bizarre dream out of my head.