Why am I so dumb in my dreams?
Dumb might not be the right word, but it’s not too far off either.
A few nights ago I had a dream that I was at the vet with my dog. The vet proceeded to tell me that my dog was pregnant and that two puppies would be born…eventually. I can’t remember reacting any other way than smiling like an idiot.
Then I was standing in an old neighborhood, waiting for my wife. There’s never any traveling in my dreams. I’m just in one place, then in another. If only real life was like that.
So, I’m standing in this neighborhood, with my dog, waiting for my wife. I was excited to tell her we were going to have two puppies running around the house. I was still trying to figure out the best way to tell her when I woke up.
You might be wondering what in that dream made me feel so stupid.
Well, my dog couldn’t have puppies because my dog is fixed…and male.
Why do we so willingly accept anything and everything that happens in a dream? My dog being fixed and the wrong gender is pretty tame compared to some dreams.
I’ve dreamed I was some kind of future cop with my wife (also a cop). We’re at some kind of highway service station and suddenly the country’s most-wanted criminal was right in front of us and we caught him.
Then I’m on a talk show stage and my best friend is telling the world that he once hired that guy to beat me up back in college. At that point, a flood of memories comes back and I remember all the beatings. My friend says it was to keep me tough when he couldn’t be around. He didn’t know they guy would eventually be a killer and wanted criminal.
So I’m minding my own business, scootering under water…
And that’s still tame, in the dream spectrum.
There are lots of theories for seeing the unreasonable as reasonable, but it seems like it’s still a bit of a mystery.
What makes the most sense to me—a complete lame—is that the majority of the brain shuts down when we sleep. The parts that give us the ability to reason and the parts that are the most in-touch with reality.
Some say it’s the frontal lobe that shuts down, which could be true. I’m not an expert, or even a hobbyist. I barely have a functioning brain while awake some days, but, it seems to me that if some people are capable of lucid dreaming they must be using parts of the brain that are dormant on someone who can’t dream lucidly.
I think lucid dreaming needs its own post. Stay tuned on that.
What’s the craziest dream you’ve had? And what’s your theory on why we accept it all?
