I like dreamin'

Human productivity will come to a crashing halt when in the next three years someone develops a device that allows us to download and replay the previous evening’s dreams.

They’re more compelling than porn.

I believe there’s no less understood or as misunderstood a part of the human psyche as the mind shows we sleepwalk through each night.

It’s like we all go out of our minds whenever we allow our minds to go where ever they wish.

I’m coming off a sleepless stretch and have enjoyed sound sleep for the past four or five nights. I don’t know whether there’s a correlation, but my dreams seem to have become more vivid, more memorable and more otherworldly weird.

And, of course, I can only recall just enough snatches of them to convince you at least the dream me is utterly insane.

Dream me in just the last week has had odd encounters with a sombrero-wearing whale, he got high with his dead grandpa, and had dinner at the fancy restaurant where the bird-like waiter kept chirping dream me’d better be careful to not spill soup on his lap because, sir, you must remember you’re not wearing any clothes.

If I could only replay them, I’d chuck the cable, tear up my library card and say adios to all the friends I go to for engaging conversation.

I’d just sit there all day watching my HD dreams.

It’s this alternative me who’s way out there beyond my control. He inhabits a world of oddities and inexplicable encounters. Nothing scary, really, and certainly nothing as scary as watching the news wide awake. The dreams are wildly entertaining.

I like dreamin’.

So did Kenny Nolan. He wrote the still dreamy 1977 hit, “I Like Dreamin’.

But like so many other songs about dreams, the song merchant gets it all wrong. He sings about dreams as if we can somehow roadmap what we see in our sleep.

We confuse dreams with ambitions.

It’s a safe bet that when Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream it had nothing to do with racial equality.

For instance: I often tuck my darling daughters in and send them off to Dreamland with the whispered wish, “Tonight I hope you have the world’s best dreams and tomorrow I hope each of those dreams begins to come true.”

That sort of implies I hope tonight the 11-year-old dreams she’s going to marry Justin Bieber and that tomorrow the dreamy singer shows up with a wagon full of chocolate-covered marshmallows and a fistful of Red Lobster coupons.

In fact, if my sleep salutation really happens we might all wake up tomorrow to see the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and J-Lo playing marbles on the floor with the stupid dog reading everyone the rules.

What are our minds trying to tell us with these dreams? Will we ever fathom their illusive meanings?

Who knows?

Thanks for taking the time to read.

I hope tonight all our dreams come true and tomorrow the whale explains to me just why she needs a sombrero.