Sermon on the Couch: Dreams are real too

I had a weird but wonderful dream today. I was in some school and it was shower time. I headed to the men's bathroom but when I opened the door I saw only half-naked women. I closed the door for a second and checked the sign, it was definitely "Men's." But then I suddenly realized, with about the same amount of surprise one experiences when one sees a stoplight turn green after it turns red (for laymen: "roughly none"), that I was a woman. After this I didn't have any problem going in.

I spent the first few minutes inside just looking at the plethora of boobies. But something wasn't right. I must have been in Austin Powers' universe because I didn't see a single nipple no matter how hard I tried. I stared in vain into the various mirrors but they all pointed their reflections either too high or too low, giving me midriffs and faces and nothing satisfying. Finally I gave up and got to washing. I took off my shirt and had a second, equally un-shocking revelation: I had breasts. And not just breasts, playmate of the year quality breasts. I felt their pleasant pull on the skin of my chest. It was most educational. But when I turned to the mirror, I couldn't see them! I was looking at myself from maybe 5 feet behind. I had a nice body, smooth creamy skin and shortish straight black hair, though I'm pretty sure I wasn't Asian.

The sexual part of the dream ended at this point and nothing of interest happened afterward. But I did milk this dream for some conversation during my classes. Specifically, the dream got me thinking: why should I perceive memories of my dreams any differently than memories of experiences from time spent awake? Why should I always qualify my stories with "in a dream"? Why should I say "I was a woman yesterday for a short while...in a dream," instead of just stopping with the facts. I had the experience, a valid experience, filled with valid if optically challenging breasts.

I have a dream, that memories of dreams and reality will be treated equally, that experiences you rememeber will be differentiated by their content rather than the vessel in which they're delivered to us. Or else I demand that we qualify all statements about real events too:

"I blogged today...in real life."

Naturally after I expressed my views to my first student of the day and then attempted to follow my new rule, everything backfired spectacularly. We were just talking about whether urine being sterile makes it safe to drink when my student asked me if I'd ever eaten shit. I seized the opportunity, as I'd had two dreams about this during my short life. Both were as unpleasant as they were memorable. I confidently answered that I had.

Mark: yea, twice.
Arthur: what? Really?
Mark: well not on purpose.
Arthur: you really ate shit? That's disgusting!

At this point my resolve started to weaken. I imagined the horrible task of tasting a piece of crap in real life and felt embarrassed for what my student now thought of me. Martin Luther King would be ashamed of me for what happened next.

Arthur: how did it happen?
Mark: well...it was in a dream...
Arthur: ha, yea right!
Mark: really!

Whether he believed me or not, he made fun of me for the rest of the lesson. But I think my resolve is slowly coming back. I definitely want to try this again.

The knot of the day was the Round Turn and Two Half Hitches: