Yes, you’re going to be subjected to these, because it’s a very odd story. My dreams have suddenly changed and wildly for the better. No real idea why.
For years and years, I was afraid to go to sleep. In the most violent of my dreams, people shot automatic weapons at me. They chased me, caught me by the ankle, and I couldn’t pull loose. I used to kick at the bedsheets in horror.
In the worst of these, I was walking down a street, and I encountered a tall grinning man with a florid face in a very white suit. He nodded at me, passed on, and in a few moments I turned to check on him. He had turned and was racing after me. I started to run, but I could tell that he would catch me and literally consume me.
I dreamed about baseball because I played it so much. But the games in my dreams were chaotic and frustrating enough to make you cry. The teams would be mixed up, a game never got played, and I was either not playing or unable to throw, hit, do anything.
As I had taught English at Auburn University, I had teaching anxiety dreams: The class wouldn’t shut up, they hadn’t read anything. On occasion, I dreamed that I had been rehired to teach, but I couldn’t find my office, and no one looked familiar. The office building was rectangular, with the main office at one end, and offices at regular intervals down the hallways. The graduate teaching assistants were in the middle, windowless offices. I walked around and around, recognizing no one, having no idea where my office was. And no one could tell me what I was to teach.
The champion of these dreams is one I had decades ago. I was at Auburn’s library, and I walked back down to Haley Center (pictured in the post dated February 28, 2020) to teach my class. Our building was cleverly designed. As you’ll see from that picture, there was a nine-story core of offices; in that core, the rooms were numbered first with the floor number, then with a 0 as it was in the center, and then the actual office number. My first office was 9076.
Then there are four three-story pods of classrooms, numbered the same way, except that the second number was either 1, 2, 3, or 4 to designate which pod. The scheme made it easy to find your way around.
But in the dream, when I entered one of the pods to go to my classroom, I discovered that the rooms had all been randomly renumbered: 9076 was next to 3225, which would be next to 2114, which would be next to 6077, etc. There was no way I would find my classroom.
Through some magic, I actually found where I was to teach, which somehow was the first floor auditorium—1215 or something. As I confronted my class, someone came up to me and whispered, “Francois Truffaut is here. He’s lecturing after your class. He wanted to see a class taught.” I looked down and caught sight of him, with wild hair and aviator sunglasses, for some reason. As he was a guest, I determined to teach the class in French, but I made it through only a couple of sentences before giving up. Then I woke. I had this dream thirty years ago.
You bet there were law anxiety dreams. Sometimes they were tied to actual events, e.g., when Leigh Herrera asked me in a dream if we could disregard an exclusive contract and I said yes; then her face kept looming up at me while I slept.
Many dreams were office-oriented; law firms are often designed the same way Auburn’s Haley Center was, in a rectangle. Again, I had trouble finding my office. For years, I dreamed of a desk full of files (always the same ones) that someone else had bequeathed me, on which nothing had been done for years, and generally regarding long-forgotten litigation in New York state courts. I had managed claims litigation at AIG, the origin for that nightmare. Or there is an agreement that I’m supposed to negotiate, but I have no idea what’s going on with the deal. And no one will tell me, and I have no idea what’s going on.
There are dreams when I’m trying to work on a computer or dialling a phone, and I can’t hit the right keys. Those go on forever. On the phone, punch punch punch buttons, almost done, FUCK, hit the wrong one. Hang up, start over. And over and over and over.
Then, finally, of course, the reductio ad absurdum, the law and teaching anxiety dreams combined: I’m walking around the office trying to find where I’m supposed to be, and not only can’t I find my office, but I don’t know whether I’m supposed to be teaching or practicing law. I recognize no one, and no one speaks to me.
Enough. You get the idea.
But then, but then. I developed a new malady summer a year ago: sleep apnea. You can check my post of July 6, 2019 for a list of everything physically wrong with me. The sleep apnea had just been diagnosed. Now I sleep with a mask over my nose and mouth and feel much better when I wake up. (Though lately, given everything wretched that the country is going through, I mix dope and whiskey and wake up in my chair sometime in the middle of the night.)
I don’t know if it’s a side effect of the mask and better nights’ sleep, but my dreams have suddenly gotten longer, richer, and, weirdly, much more positive.
Some of them involve the same goddamn agreement that someone was supposed to draft and got left to me, same one from the nighmares. The particulars are completely unknown, the status unclear, and no one knows if the principals even want to sign. Nevertheless I’m supposed to work on it, but, because I don’t get it, I’m loathe even to open the file. In a typical iteration, nothing at all happens, and no one cares. This is an excellent outcome in the legal world; ignore a problem long enough, and it may just go away!
Then in a recent dream someone cared, and twelve of us or so gathered in a conference room and had a call with one of the principals who asked that I be the one to work on it. A much more experienced lawyer was in the room, so I was delighted to be chosen. Later I inferred that I had been chosen because I WAS inexperienced at this sort of agreement, and everyone wanted the negotiation to fail. It may not seem like a victory, but this was one because I figured it out and avoided the inevitable blame! Win win win.
Finally, the other night, we got down to actually writing the contract, and I was more than competent and was making great strides in putting out what was a dumpster fire. I succeeded, and numerous wild and incomprehensible drafts came together to become something that everyone could sign. Wow.
And sports! Holy fuck! I had a dream recently in which I was playing in an NFL football game—never mind why. On the first play, a kickoff, I made several excellent blocks to spring the returner for a long gain. Later I intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown. Then I was a running back and gained many yards. Finally I returned a kickoff and nearly scored. Are you kidding me? I never even played high school football.
The baseball dreams are less obvious successes, but the games actually get played, and I’m hitting the ball well—home runs, even! Everyone likes me. We win.
One night recently, I had a wild basketball dream. I was coaching but ended up playing, and at one point ended up guarding the father of one of Kate’s rivals, a former friend who betrayed Kate, I presume at the behest of this evil father. As I was guarding him, he dumped a cup of water on the floor, and I gave him a vicious elbow for it. He asked, “Why did you do that?” and I said, “You dumped water on the floor!”
Gentle readers, I am not a violent person merely because it is not in my best interests to do so. But I elbowed this jerk! He looked remorseful, which has never ever happened in his life. Ha! What a great dream.
Lastly, the other night I had an amazing dream, which suggested this post: I’m playing for a professional basketball team in the playoffs. I score 26 points, make any number of amazing passes for assists, grab rebounds, and disrupt the other team’s offense with steals. We win.
What the hell is going on here? I mean, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and all that, but huh? After decades of being shot at, chased, getting lost, failing at teaching and law, why am I suddenly succeeding beyond reason.
OK, I get that probably I’m sleeping better. I had been diagnosed with severe sleep apnea because I was waking up 30 times an hour. I get that my REM sleep is better. So perhaps my dreams are longer? But why would the content be so much more favorable to me and my psyche? I used to be afraid to go to sleep. Now I can’t wait. Any ideas?
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