DIANE MAKAR MURPHY Dream weaving gets us through the night

Last night, I had a dream so wacky, it may as well have been my husband's -- the king of obscure dreams.
John is the most prolific and prophetic dream weaver of all time. He is also a man so evidently clear of conscience that his eyes roll back in their sockets before his eyelids fully drop. Furthermore, the muscles in his hands, at the moment of unconsciousness, twitch as they instantly relax. It is the perfect dream seismograph. I know instantly when John has fallen asleep. More fascinating is the fact that he begins to have visions immediately.
It has become a game that, lying in bed, upon feeling his hand twitching in mine, I immediately awaken him.
"What did you dream?" I say after a mere second has elapsed.
"I was standing in a large field. There were two groups of guys. One group of guys was hanging out the window of one side of a school bus, and the other group was hanging out the back of a hay wagon that was being pulled by a pickup truck. It was on a dirt road next to an irrigation ditch. And in the field on the left was corn. And in the field on the right was parsley. And the groups were rushing at each other like they were jousting ... and oh, in the back of the pickup truck was a dog. & quot;
Amazing recall
We're both so amazed at this one-second epic (the above came last night) that we'll repeat the experiment until we're too tired to be silly.
Even better than this, however, are John's full-fledged dreams -- those allowed to continue to a fruition that results in wonderfully odd philosophical tidbits. The earliest one I remember featured John running through a heavily wooded area. Eventually, he encountered a creek, suddenly tripped over a root and landed in the water, hurting his neck.
Upon awakening, John was left with the riddle his dream had presented: Was that a neck in the creek or a crick in the neck?
That's nothing compared to another one we wrote down. (Yes, we've taken to logging them like clinical psychologists.) John discovered a book of humor on a table. He picked it up and looked at it before awakening. The title, he recalled in consciousness, was, & quot;Why does the Rabbi Always Have the Biggest Shoes? & quot;
He has on other occasions awakened with one liners. The most memorable was & quot;James Garner, the thinking man's Dom DeLouise." Hmmm...
Not all of John's intriguing dreams have those extraordinary quips. A while ago, he dreamt that he saw an ordinary looking suitcase. Then, for some reason, in his dream, he was able to see a cross section of the bag, which revealed its contents -- in this case, three midgets. Not only that, somehow John knew one of them was claustrophic.
Quite a few of our mornings are spent bent over in laughter.
My dream
Now, my dream, while not exactly obscure, was sufficiently weird.
It took place in the neighborhood where I grew up, where all of my dreams of home at any age mysteriously take place. I was dressed for work in a suit and heels, walking down the street past a busy intersection.
Quite a few pedestrians were on the sidewalks, but I paid them no mind until I saw a woman hurrying up the street in my direction. She had a rubber ball nose and pom-pom buttons.
& quot;Oh no! & quot; I thought looking down at my navy blue pinstripes. & quot;I look like a fool. I'm so embarrassed! How could I have forgotten . . . 'Dress Like a Clown Day!' & quot;
For the first time, I noticed children in the crosswalk had pom-poms safety-pinned to their shirts. Drivers had on orange wigs. I was the only misfit! I awakened in a sweat, intent on getting my daughter's plaid Halloween clown pants out of the attic.
For one evening, I knew exactly what it was like to be John. And frankly, I'd rather HE be the dream weaver.
murphy@vindy.com