Dream

"Suppose last night you had two dreams. In one, God appears and commands you to take a year off and travel the world. In the other, God commands you to take a year off to go work in a leper colony. Which of those dreams, if either, would you consider meaningful? Or suppose you had one dream in which your friend defends you against enemies, and another dream in which that same friend goes behind your back and tries to seduce your significant other? Which dream would you take seriously?" This opens a New York Times article about dreams. It goes on to say that finally we know whether dreams are good or bad and how to interpret them. The rest of the article says no one knows for sure.

My dream was like a video. I'm on a mountain lift - one of those things that take you for a ride up the mountain. It's an incredible view - desert with mountains and a lot of sky. Right near the top, I know that we're falling - falling to our death. I hold up my cell phone, and we (not sure who my companion is) both smile a big smile for the picture. Then it seems I win an award for this astonishing picture. I'd had a restless kind of night - leg cramps. Sleep was scarce and I believe this dream happened in the latter part of the evening.
It was a very clear story, clear enough that when I woke I played it over in my mind. I felt sure I had the story line down pat, but I had done this before and knew that I had to scribble the outline somewhere or it would be gone.
Sure enough. I start describing it next afternoon, and it's gone. I came back here and found it scribbled on the side of a newspaper crossword puzzle.
I've heard that it's good to dream. It's the way the brain cleans itself out. Or something like that. I don't know whether that's true or not. The brain is a very complicated item - perhaps. Or also it could be that it's just like a video that replays stange clips sometimes in the right order, and sometimes in the wrong order.