Reality returns after a nighttime of dreaming

I don’t know if I should mention this but I have been dreaming a lot lately. I’m not an expert on dreams. I’m not sure that there is anything in them and before you jump to conclusions it has nothing to do with Mayo winning the All Ireland. None of these recent dreams have had anything to do with me togging out again. I have had dreams in the past when Mayo were struggling and of course there were pleas to come to the rescue. But that was long ago.

No. These recent dreams have been very random and inconclusive. There may have been a beginning but there was no end that I could discern when I awoke from my slumbers. And that’s another thing about these dreams there was no end result. I could and did go back to sleep again and as often as not a dream would return but a completely different dream with the same outcome - in other words with no ending. So I’m left wondering what is it all about.

There are people out there who can interpret dreams but that’s not much good to me since these people are never around when you need them and, even if they were, I am useless at trying to recall the dreams when I am awake.

I’m not alone wondering about dreams. Our old pal Prospero at the promptings of Shakespeare in The Tempest pondered the question, when his revels had ended, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep”. My problem is that the dreams are interfering with my sleep.

There are other reasons naturally, such as calls of nature, why sleep is disrupted but, increasingly frequently, dreams are the cause. My dreams, and I’m not suggesting that they are unique, but they are daft most of the time. They don’t seem to make any sense. Other times they just jump out at me and leave me exhausted. They are black and white occasionally but more often in glorious colour. And, this past while, there has inevitably been a rainbow. There would not be anything of note about a rainbow, if it was only one. But now a rainbow is a constant, never dominant or full frontal, but always there.

Now you would think that the dreamer might have been inclined to go to the end of the rainbow in search of the crock of gold but no, there was not the slightest attraction to a quest for gold. There was no reason for the rainbow to be present, except, of course, it was a pleasing feature in the dreamscape.

In my waking hours, I resorted to Mr Freud but he was no help. While he had his theories about dreams, he argued that all dreams are a disguised attempt to satisfy unconscious, repressed desires or instincts that we cannot accept while we are awake and he separated dreams into what we visibly see and remember (called manifest content) and the hidden, true meaning behind those symbols (latent content).

Now, while I have no wish to denigrate a man of Freud’s genius, as far as I’m concerned that’s a load of codswallop. No man in their right mind would try to make sense of the dreams ordinary people, such as myself, have. And the mystery of the rainbow remains just that, a mystery. Freud had nothing that threw any light on the rainbow of my dreams but then maybe he thought it was only a dream.

I was at it again last night. Dreaming. I was in a room with about ten others, mostly men but with a few women. The men were dressed in dark suits and were what you might expect to see in a serious executive boardroom. I had a box under my arm. It was a nondescript box, a bit of a cross between a shoe box and a biscuit tin. It had a lid. There was a mantelpiece on the wall, but no fire, not even a fireplace. I placed the box on the mantelpiece and then the rainbow appeared, resplendent and forming an arch over the lot. I know, one does not expect to see a rainbow in a room, but there it was in all its glory.

Then one of the ladies approached. She was a blond lady with an immaculately coiffured hairdo, snugly cropped about a stunning face. She was stylishly dressed in boardroom grey, her elegant figure adding grace to the white shirt and tight skirt, cut to just above the knee. (I did not get a chance to look at her legs!). Her job was to interview me about the box.

At this stage I became aware that it was not simply a room but more of a stage and behind me was an auditorium. I did not see who was in the audience but I had the impression of a considerable crowd in serried ranks like the terracotta warriors in a mausoleum in China.

I did not have a clue about what was in the box. As far as I was concerned it was an enigma wrapped in a mystery and here I was, about to be interviewed by this formidable lady who, the more I looked at her, became more terrifying by the minute. This was not going to be a chat. I was about to be interrogated. I tried to set some ground rules. I suggested we leave the interrogation over until the morning. She was adamant. It would be done tonight, so I suggested a 9.30 start. She agreed. Thanks be to God. And then I awakened, urged by a call of nature, to leave the dream. I didn’t go back to sleep. I wondered what Sigmund would make of it all.

The other thing about this dreaming is that I am often left in the dark, naturally, but also, in that semi-conscious state between being awake and asleep, I often find myself considering matters of singular importance or, equally, total nonsense. In that semi-conscious condition I find that the creative juices begin to flow. I get wonderful ideas and literacy constructs for the Loftus Let Loose column and I’m often tempted to rise there and then and hammer them into the computer. But, just as I think about getting up, I fall back to sleep and in the morning the wonderful ideas have turned to dust. Reality returns.

Back in the real world we are now faced with the problem of Donald and how does one solve a problem like Donald. His visit next weekend will cause problems and test our security arrangements. Gardaí very likely will come under attack from our peace loving citizens and afterward be blamed for over-reacting in the face of peaceful protest. It all follows a predictable pattern.

By common consent, Donald is a megalomaniac and he is an eighty years old megalomaniac. One must give him credit for stamina. It seems to me that the best way to deal with him is to completely ignore him. That would be a huge blow to his ego and would utterly deflate him. He is the President of the United States and is due certain formalities, so of course President Connolly has to entertain him. But suppose she simply greeted him and asked how was the craic, what was he doing in town and how was he enjoying our nice soft weather. Inane things such that he would become befuddled.

You know. Make small talk. Deny him the opportunity to tell all and sundry how great he is and how great America is. Tell the media not to be bothering him while he is on holidays. We have a reputation for treating celebrities with a bit of respect here and urge the media to give him space and most especially don’t ask those stupid questions that allow him the opportunity to rant and rave or, God forbid, to tell us how much he loves the Irish. Then give him a picnic basket and pack him off down to Doonbeg.

Thought for the Day 

I don’t dream at night, I dream all day, I dream for a living 

- Stephen Spielberg.