DREAMS, PARTS ONE & TWO

PART ONE

Sometimes you can’t even get people to listen to your dreams when you tell them that they were in your dreams because, I think, they realize that whatever it was they didn’t really do it, and no matter what it is probably embarassing. I think it is all about control – it’s so hard in real life, and imagine when you are not only asleep but you are actually doing something in someone else’s dreams and it’s not even you, is their 'you.' And you are doing something that you haven’t agreed to do in any sort of formal way, and the potential for disaster is just amazing. I can see why nobody wants to listen to stories about them doing things that they don’t do. It could be embarassing, or it could be terribly uninteresting.

Now then, I can’t say this is true with everybody – I have a friend who writes short stories, they’re really great, so I imagine that he can probably tell his dream stories really well. He might even be careful about what he tells you. Still, since he writes short stories, I am not sure that I would listen to his dreams if he told me that I was in one of them, because he probably just made up what I did in the dream – maybe he is even trying to work out an idea for a short story and waiting to see how I feel about what I did in his dream. I think he is waiting for a reaction. If I say, “Wow!” or “Really??” Will I end up in a story forever? I might have to say “You should write a story about that” in case he was just innocently telling my about his dream and had no intention of writing about it, if, I mean, I liked it, and wanted to read something about the interesting things that he says that I do in short stories that he might write. If he does do something with me, though, I hope he doesn’t change my name in the story about the dream that I did something in. I also hope that whatever I do I don’t do in a dream in a story but in an actual story. I think there is a big difference. Or is there? OK, I may be splitting hairs here.

One other thought I had: I don’t think that I have ever split a single hair in my entire life. I like the way they do it in cartoons, with a shiny steel axe.

PART TWO

If I could write short stories, I bet I would stop dreaming entirely. It would be neat–I might miss my dreams, but I could write about anything whatsoever. I could even write a story about you, doing anything, for instance, you falling in love for the first time, or screaming and falling out of an airplane even though you are wearing a parachute.

When you say “You” in a short story you’re only perhaps talking about YOU, or, possibly, you're talking about the reader. Actually, it could be anyone. Well, anyone but me. “I” is always “Me” in short stories. When you say “I am” in a story you know you are “I” if you are the one who is writing the story. "You" is different, however. "You" is mysterious and vague. When I am writing about you, it isn’t necessarily you, and it might just not be anybody. It might just be an idea. "You" might even be a delicious oatmeal cookie. You just never know. It could be you, though.