Dream A Little Dream Of Me

Dreams. Funny things, aren't they?

We all have dreams. All of us. Even if you don't remember your dreams, you do have them. In fact, if you didn't dream, you would die - that's how important those REM cycles are to your body.

I can remember when TV broadcast a test card and some easy listening music for most of the daytime (yes, I'm that old - weren't the 1970s fun?) and the purpose of this was to allow engineers and TV repairmen to check that everything was OK with the transmission and reception of the BBC and ITV. Well, I've read that dreams are sort of an internal version of that. While you're asleep, your body is repairing the damage you've done to yourself through the day, and your brain is sorting out all the sights and sounds you've seen and heard, putting them in the right files in your memory bank if you like. Every now and then throughout the night, it stops what it's doing and "broadcasts a test signal" - a dream!

A friend of mine recently got hold of a dream analysis book, and while I'm not sure I believe any of this stuff, there are a few things I want to check out in it. For example, I have - on and off since my teenage years - dreamed of being able to float. Not fly - just float, hover in the air if you like, maybe about a metre off the ground or so. It's sort of built in to my other dreams, rather than a particular dream in itself. Another thing that seems to happen is I have long hair in my dreams - like I had in my early twenties. Anyone who's seen my photo knows that I don't wear it long anymore, yet my dream self has yet to catch up :) And I've spent three nights in a row dreaming about living in some sort of studio highrise flat in a large city (presumably London) having parties and generally enjoying life. Now that's a dream I'd like to come true. Mind you, this one would be pretty good too...



There's one dream I can remember having even though it was years ago - I'd have been about 21. I had met this girl at a party, she had taken me home and was coming on to me (remember, I was 21...) I kept telling her to stop, and when she asked why, I said "because this is all a dream....I had a dream like this before. I only want you if you're real". She smiled and said "Trust me, I'm real. This is real." So, well...things happened (remember, I was 21...) and then I woke up. And I actually cried. She had betrayed me. Not sure what the story is there - either my dreams are pretty vivid or I have one weird mental state. Or a bit of both...

And so we come to last night, or rather early this morning. I'd woke up in the night freezing cold, feeling rather fragile and vowing never to drink Jack Daniels straight again....settled my stomach with some chocolate milk and went back to sleep. I dreamed I was sitting by a fire, nice and warm, in someone's house. There was a young woman with me, we were talking about various things, and I had some chocolate which I shared with her. We sat close beside the fire, I put my arm around her, and we just - well - held each other close and looked into the fire. Nothing else, just that. But it felt lovely and cozy, and it was a bit of a wrench to wake up and find myself back in my own house and my own bed.

As Mick Jagger once said, sometimes you can't always get what you want. But in your dreams, there are no such restrictions, and on balance, I think I'd prefer it that way to otherwise. Most of us have only one dreaming period left before Hallowe'en. Whatever you're dreaming about tonight - I hope it's a nice one.

CASS ELLIOT - DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF ME
(from the album "Dream A Little Dream Of Me", 1968)