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From Good Dreams to Bad Nightmares:

If You Can Dream It, Can You Be It?

By Tom Anselm

   When I was a little feller, I had this recurring dream. It always seemed to come when I had a fever. I would be sitting on the screened-in back porch and up in the gray sky was a black dot flying back and forth. It got closer and closer, bigger and bigger, until I saw this ugly witch on a broom, flowing black robes, pointy hat.

    She’d fly right up to the window and stare at me with red-hot-glowing eyes, and then… I’d wake up to touch of my mom’s cool hand on my burning forehead. I still get the chill-bumps thinking about that old hag. Ahhhhh! It was clearly a ‘bad dream’, a ‘nightmare’, one of those moments that play out in our sleep due to stress, physical and emotional.

  Some people have them all the time, especially those who have had the misfortune of trauma. Others, not so much, but they are a part of our brain function. ,“To sleep, perchance to dream,” said the tortured Hamlet. Songs like ‘Dream Lover’, I Had A Dream’, ‘The Impossible Dream’ imply a quality apart from the normal to these happenstances.

      Ella Fitzgerald and Doris Day and Mama Cass all asked us to ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me.’ The saying goes ‘If you can Dream it, you can Be it.’ Well, last night, I dreamed I was a priest. Odds are, that ain’t gonna come true, right? And I could dream all night about doing heart surgery, but you wouldn’t want to be my patient. What exactly are these mental ruminations that come to us in our nocturnal state? Visions of the future?

    Resolutions of past events? Visits from those beyond this earthly realm? Dreams have been the subject of study throughout history. Sigmund Freud was a believer in the dream as a great teller of personality.

    Native Americans attributed mystical qualities to their nighttime mental sojourns. Technically speaking, a dream is a function of the brain wherein it processes and allows for learning and understanding during its non-conscious mode. In dream-state, most usually during the Rapid Eye Movement phase, that fun part of the brain called the Amygdala is very active. This is the center of the flight or flight instinct and emotional processing. It takes over from the other chunks of brain matter devoted to logic, planning and problem solving.

    And creativity seems to be juiced up as well. Paul McCartney is said to have come up with the tune for “Yesterday” in a dream. Makes sense, right?    There are some studies that indicate dreams are cross-cultural. Many around the globe report dreams of flying, being lost, showing up late, and amazingly, being naked in public. Can’t recall ever having one of those, but I do remember standing in my Fruit of the Loom’s at a baseball game. (In a dream, of course. Let me be clear about that. Geez!)

 Men apparently dream differently than women. Guys, not surprisingly, dream of action and physical activity. Also (how does one say this in a family newspaper?) … sex. Again, not surprisingly.

 Women’s dreams trend to the emotional, fear of exclusion and loss and, get this, issues that relate to clothes and fashion. Yeah, that’s what some say.

   Did you ever dream you couldn’t find your car? Normal. That you’re flying or falling, or late for class? Yep, common. Loved ones showing up, either to give advice or just ‘be there?’ Also not uncommon, although anytime my ma and pa make an appearance, they are just smiling, and offer a calming presence.

 Dreams can be what one researcher calls ‘good emotional first aid for the brain.’ And it can give us some crazy stories to tell in the morning! ‘Dream On, Dream Weaver.’ ‘Dare to Dream’ and ‘Follow your Dreams.’So jammie-up, sleep tight and… Sweet Dreams!

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