Dreams are weird

I know, I know. Everybody groans when somebody says, “I had this weird dream…” But I did! And it’s my blog, so there. Also, another dream post I wrote about being pregnant with elephants still gets a strangely high number of searches, so maybe it’s helping (?) someone.

So a couple nights ago, I had a religious experience in my dream. Which is already weird, because I’m not religious. I mean, I’m not a ninja either, and I dream about that. And I can’t fly, but that doesn’t seem to stop dream-me. But still, being religious in my dream was extra weird, even for dream-me.

I had been summoned to a prophet’s island to translate a mysterious carving on a silver rock (that looked like a manhole cover, but whatever). Apropos of nothing (as is SOP for dreams) Macgyver was the captain of the boat. (I’ve never even seen the show, but my brain is happy to supply pop culture references, I guess.) So we arrived at the island, and I donned a brown Obi Kenobi robe (of course) to climb the mountain, passing a line of waiting supplicants. The mountain was made of ice, and I had to find hand- and foot-holds to climb. When I got to the top, I walked up to the mysterious carving/manhole cover.

The prophet was hovering beside me, and everyone was eager to hear the Word of God. I FELT the power of moment vibrating through me. (It was garbage day, so it might have been the recycling truck pulling up out front.) It was like a true, real-life religious experience. My whole body was tingling in the dream. I felt a euphoria like a flying dream. I looked down at carving and it said:

“Tingles happen here.”

In the dream, I laughed. And not-dreaming-me was impressed that even dream-me is a smart-ass. Needless to say, everyone on the mountain was pretty disappointed. Except the prophet, who was furious. He chased me down the ice mountain. (Luckily, dream-me was in full ninja mode, so I slid deftly from foot- to hand-hold without plummeting to my doom.)

But as I made my escape, dream-me started to cry. Because I liked those tingles. They felt good, like a sugar buzz or hot sun on cold skin. And I was sad that the tingles were just tingles, not something “more”. So I’m crying and sliding down the ice mountain, and I hear a voice. Not really a god-like voice. There was no booming or anything. But it said:

“It will never be enough.”

And that made dream-me cry harder, because how sad is that? Why can’t it ever be enough?

But then the voice said, “There’s always a second chance.”

Dream-me stopped crying. The alarm went off and I woke up, still sort of caught between this laughing and crying thing. I lay there for a minute to make sure I captured the imagery and emotion of the dream. (If I don’t do that, I lose chunks before I can record them.) And I thought about it. I think maybe it IS sad — not just for dream-me, but for real-me — that tingles are just tingles and nothing is ever enough. But the idea that there’s always a second chance… that JUST MIGHT be “enough” of a powerful message.

I’ve read about how the human brain is wired for religious experience, which is really interesting to me. And in the real world, we see how religion and purported religiosity still affect us, sometimes in bad ways. I’m not inclined to think most dreams really “mean” anything except a chance for our busy brains to process some stuff during our down-time, but I think I’ll actually use this particular religious experience. Even if it wasn’t real.