Nov. 28: "The Dream''

My daughter, Abby, dreams all the time. I’ve heard that we all do. What I mean is that she remembers all of her dreams. But there are decades that go by without me remembering any of my dreams.

Last night, I dreamed and, for whatever reason, it remains vivid in my waking hours, a dream so bizarre as to be interesting. This especially true if you put a lot of stock into the idea that dreams are relevant to real life. I don’t put much stock in that notion and I am particularly adamant when it comes to this particular dream, for reasons that will be all too apparent.

Some parts of this dream, I remember in great detail. Some parts were vague even while I was dreaming the dream. The events in my dream seemed to be loosely connected at best, which is to say that the dream did not proceed logically from one scene to the next. If this were fiction, it would be considered very bad writing.

But I cannot be held accountable for the writing of my dream, of course. I’m just passing it along as I recall it.

I should warn you that some of the material in my dream is best considered for a “mature audience.’’ Again, this is not my fault. Some of it is pretty disgusting, too. (See previous disclaimers).

Now, having said all that, I will proceed with the recounting of last night’s dream If any of you are “interpreters,’’ I’d be interested in what you make of this dream, by the way.

THE DREAM

I don’t know where I was at the beginning of the dream. I don’t know where I had been, either. I got the impression that I was with a friend, although I don’t know who that friend was.

We are walking into a building for some sort of event. I say this because there was a man at the door and while I didn’t give him a ticket or anything, it seemed to me that we had to have his approval before we could enter.

My friend seemed to know something unusual about this man. “Watch this!’’ he said as we approached our turn in line.

The man at the door has this big sword, maybe it was scimitar. At any rate, when a man came up to him, he would take a big swipe with his scimitar and brush the front of the man’s pants without actually making contact with skin.

OK. Here’s where it gets really weird: As soon as he swiped the man’s pants with the scimitar, he would throw a fake penis on the floor, as if he had separated the customer from his, uh, appendage. Everybody laughed.

Soon it was my turn. The guy takes a big swing with the scimitar; I feel the steel brush the fabric of my pants. Then he throws the fake penis on the floor.

For some reason, I am bothered by this. The fake penis on the floor doesn’t look fake to me.

“That’s a fake penis, right?’’ I ask the man, hoping to be reassured.

“You can imagine what you like,’’ he said. “But the fact is, that’s your penis. I missed. Sorry.’’

I was not at all comforted by this, as you might imagine. Do you ever pretend one thing all the while knowing it’s not true? That’s the feeling I had. I was pretty sure it was my penis on the floor – the man with the scimitar even apologized for “missing.’’ But somehow, I just told myself that my penis was still attached and that there was a fake penis on the floor. You would think it would be easy enough to confirm, right? But I didn’t “check.’’ Maybe I didn’t want to know. That’s all I can think of, at least.

The next thing I know I am in a room. It seems like someone’s living room. There are chairs and end tables and lamps and a big sofa with several people sitting on it. I am listening to their chatter when I realize who these people are.

They are from the Westboro Baptist Church – those crazy people that picket the funerals of fallen soldiers. My eyes focus on one woman on the couch. She is in her mid-20s. I recognize her as the heir apparent to the Westboro group.

Now, in my waking world, I had recently read a Kansas City Star profile on this young woman. It was an interesting story, but it’s not as though the whole Westboro affair is something that I have much interest in. I am certainly not obsessed with the subject.

But in my dream, I recognized this woman as the woman who was profiled in the newspaper story. After a while, I could not resist. I remember leaning close to her and saying, “You are wrong and I can prove that you are wrong.’’

She just looked at me, but she didn’t seem to be angry.

It was a confrontational exchange. I don’t remember being mad. I didn’t raise my voice. “You are wrong and I can prove that you are wrong,’’ was delivered in the same matter-of-fact fashion that you might say, “I think your lights are on in the parking lot.’’

We talked for a while. I remember saying to her: “The problem with your group is that you act as though the New Testament never happened.’’

I don’t remember her response or any other part of the conversation, but for some reason, I had the sense that we had agreed to talk about this matter at some future point in time.

The next thing I know, I am slouching out in a big chair. A different woman comes up to me.

“What’s wrong with your pants?’’ she asks. She seems upset.

I look down at my pants. I am wearing blue jeans. The left leg of my jeans, from my crotch to below the knee, has a dark stain. I touch my pants leg. It is stiff; as though whatever it was that stained my pants had dried.

“I think the man at the door cut my penis off,’’ I said.

I do not remember being all that upset, though. It seemed as though I was convinced that he hadn’t cut all of my penis off, just a part of it. It could be fixed, I thought. And that comforted me.

The next thing I know, I am thinking about lawyers. How much do you get if somebody cuts off your penis? That’s what I wanted to discuss with an attorney.

I said at the beginning that I didn’t know where I was. But somehow, I’m thinking now the venue was somewhere on the Mississippi State campus because, as I was thinking about lawyers, I was afraid that if I sued Mississippi State, my professors would flunk me because I sued the school. So I thought, no, I won’t hire a lawyer. First, I’ll see if the school will offer me a settlement.

And then I woke up.

So that’s the dream. I do not suggest it has any literary value, obviously. Nor do I think it is filled with symbolism or is, in any way, a metaphor. I do not believe it is a prediction of some future event, you know, like the dream Joseph interpreted for Pharaoh.

At least I hope not.