Coreyshead - Looking at the World 1 Pixel at a Time

For years my favorite dreams were the vivid ones; hyper-real visions, usually nightmares, that I could remember with such clarity when I awoke (if they didn’t awaken me themselves) that it would often take me a little while to distinguish them from reality.

People look at me strangely when I exclaim “It was great!” after relating how a dream of this type will cause me to sit bolt upright in bed, bathed in sweat, heart palpitating.

It’s not that I enjoy the troubled emotions such dreams conjure in me as much as I admire the sheer power (or is it the flailing helplessness?) of the subconscious mind.

I’m fascinated that our minds, which often aren’t sharp enough to keep us out of trouble when we’re awake, can be so powerfully effective when we’re asleep. Further, we go to movies and read books to experience the thrill and tragedy that we don’t have in our own lives, as well as subject ourselves to carnival rides designed to make us wet our pants, so I hardly think I’m that bizarre for treasuring these dreams – especially when they’re not only free but terrifically more effective and personalized than most waking attempts to safely experience the thrilling.

But I have a new favorite dream: the joke dream.

I don’t know how common this is (it can’t be too rare as there is a Seinfeld episode that deals with the concept) but I have been having dreams in which I come up with a funny joke that leaves me suffused with good humor upon waking.

The first time it occurred, the joke was so funny to me that I was awakened by my own laughter. It was still dark, so I simply rolled over, chuckling, and fell back asleep but, when I got up some hours later, I was still in a jolly frame of mind. Great!

This morning my alarm went off while my dream self was basking in the hilarity of another joke and, though the last thing I wanted to do was to crawl out of bed, I did so with a smile, not a grumble.

What does that say about a person? That, instead of enigmatic and surreal, or disturbing and frightening dreams, they literally dream up jokes?

I’m sure a psychologist could weigh in and make me look like a wack-job for it but I’m quite proud of and pleased by the fact that my subconscious is working this way.

Of course, just like the Seinfeld episode, the jokes aren’t very funny once I’m awake. They just don’t translate well from the subconscious to the conscious. This is because, without the depth of the mental connection that you have with yourself within a dream, the finer nuances – those things that help make a joke truly funny – are often lost and you’re left with a handful of clunky words that render the joke’s effectiveness below that of the mildly amusing pun.

It’s okay, though. The memory of the jokes still make me smile, if a bit wistfully.

Sometimes life really is but a dream.

Tags: dreams, Humor