Dr. Metablog

Dr. Metablog is the nom de blague of Vivian de St. Vrain, the pen name of a resident of the mountain west who writes about language, books, politics, or whatever else comes to mind. Under the name Otto Onions (Oh NIGH uns), Vivian de St. Vrain is the author of “The Big Book of False Etymologies” (Oxford, 1978) and, writing as Amber Feldhammer, is editor of the classic anthology of confessional poetry, “My Underwear” (Virago, 1997).

Revelatory Dream?

I entered a gloomy, dark, building, perhaps a derelict church. An older woman was sitting there, not exactly in a pew but in a large wooden chair. She said to me, "We help dying people."  Was she a nun or a sister of some sort?  I said, "Like hospice."  She was adamant. "No, not at all like hospice." I said, "Can you help me?" When I said those words I realized that I had frightened her. "Do you plan to murder me?"  I assured her that I was not a murderer. To make her more comfortable, I said, "Why don't we go outside where you will feel safer."  But just as we opened the heavy wooden door, a heavy, threatening man appeared.  I killed him without a weapon, with my bare hands. So I was a murderer after all. The woman whom I was trying to protect, said, "Now I know you're planning to murder me."  I objected: "I'll prove to you I'm not a habitual murderer. Go directly to your car and get in it and drive away. She did so (it was a blue Ford Focus). That's when the dream ended.

In real life, I'm a peaceful person. In my dream world, I'm occasionally (not often, but often enough) a killer. Why?  Is it some deeply suppressed inner anger that works its way to the surface during the night?  Or I am simply a member of a species (homo sapiens) that has a millennium-long habit of violence?

Or perhaps the dreams are meaningless? Just the flotsam of badly-wired synapses? If so, I wish they'd give it a rest.

One response to “Revelatory Dream?”

  1. I’ll opt for meaningless. Dreams may be evolution’s clumsy way of trying to keep us sleeping. If I had had a similar dream, the nun would have been Mother Teresa, I would have been there to kill her, and the weapon would have been an unsterilized needle.

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