Dreams

"I had the weirdest dream last night," Chloe said.

"Oooh, tell me!" I said. I love weird dreams.

Back in high school I took a psychology class with my friend Melissa. We spent the majority of our class time bitching about how bored we were, but then one day we started a section on dream analysis.

Melissa told me a dream she had during her history class earlier that morning.

I have never fallen asleep during a history class. Chemistry class dreams, however, were some of my most pleasant.

Melissa dreamed that she was in her history class, not sleeping, and there was a golden spoon lying on the desk. She attempted to pick it up, but try as she might, she simply could not pull the spoon from the desk. It was like it was crazy-glued on. Then the golden spoon suddenly tarnished.

Off the top of my head I instantly came up with an interpretation. "What it means," I explained, "is that when you and the boy you're crushing on spooned the other night, it seemed perfect at the time. But now you're realizing that no relationship is ever going to come out of it. He's never going to actually be your 'boyfriend', so an occasional session of spooning is the most you're going to get. And suddenly, it doesn't seem so perfect anymore."

I know.

I know.

I totally kicked that dream's ass.

So ever since then I've been fascinated with hearing other people's weird dreams to see if I can interpret them. I hardly ever remember my own weird dreams (except one, but that'll be a different post). So when Chloe said, "I had the weirdest dream last night," I was all set to wow her with my dream-interpreting skills.

After doing a few basic stretches in preparation for blowing her away - never underestimate the importance of stretching to prevent injury - I invited Chloe to recount her dream. "I like to interpret other people's dreams. Tell me," I said.

"Well, it was really weird. I dreamed that I was a zombie."

"Ooh, zombies!" said my inner nerd.

"Ooh, zombies!" said I.

My inner nerd and I need to work on not speaking simultaneously.

"Okay, so, I was a zombie," Chloe said. "There was this thing stuck in the back of my head, which is how they were controlling me."

I know.

I thought the exact same thing.

But let her finish.

"So I'd be normal most of the time, but every now and then I'd turn into the zombie. Then I'd be running around doing this" (insert hand gesture that looks something like a squirrel eating an acorn) "and eating rocks."

I know.

I know.

"There was a group of us, and we were all friends. We knew when the" (bizarre hand gesture again) "was about to start, so we had to strap ourselves down so we wouldn't hurt each other. So what do you think it means?"

"I think it means you have absolutely no idea what a zombie is."