Where do dreams come from? What do they mean? Why do I ask?
There was a man called Ian Wallace on Radio 2 today talking about his new book entitled 100 top dreams or something like that.
Why was I listening to Radio 2?
Well, I was driving down to Ross on Wye and I turned on the radio. It was tuned to Radio 2 because my wife had been the last one to drive the car and she likes to listen to that station.
I don't normally listen to Radio 2, I either let my iPod choose random Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Steve Earle songs (mainly) or I go to Radio 5live where I can get endless speculation about football transfers and descriptions of long traffic jams, some of which I have participated in. It makes me feel better if the queue I am in on the M6 has been reported on national radio. It comforts me to know that my slow progress is remarkable enough to be newsworthy, justifies my frustration, makes my predicament official.
The author began to speak about his dreams book as I pulled into a petrol station. By the time I had filled up and paid, he was already on to number two on the list, losing your teeth. In his estimation, losing teeth is the second most common dream and it indicates a loss of confidence in real life. You show your teeth when you are happy or angry, so that makes a kind of sense.
I gathered from the discussion that the top, number one, most common dream of all time is the one where you are being chased, but I missed what inferences he drew from that one.
I found all this only vaguely interesting until he announced the number three dream on the list. Not being able to find a toilet.
The interviewer was very sceptical that this came number three in the charts. He found it hard to believe that there were ninety six less common dreams in this man's book than this one about an inability to locate an appropriate place to pee.
I beg to differ. I would have expected it to be number one. It probably is number one but most people wouldn't admit to it and probably invented some claptrap about being chased while all their teeth fell out to avoid embarrassment.
The dream book man explained that this dream was an indication that the dreamer is not taking sufficient care of their own needs in waking life. That they would benefit from a clearer understanding of what they want and would do well to consider making their own needs a priority rather than constantly looking out for others.
Not that I am admitting to any particular kind of dream, you understand, but I may buy the book if that's OK with you.
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