dream a little dream of me

When I was in junior high school I spent a lot of time in the school library. Not in the studious, bookish way, but in the mopey, bad at sports way. Read a lot of Stephen King. That kind of way.
And as a kid who spent a lot of off-hours at the library (splitting my time between there and the band hall -- that kind of way) I was witness to a bit of behind-the-scenes action. I knew which students won the contest to come up with a slogan to increase interest in reading days before it was announced at a school assembly (one of whom was yours truly -- that kind of way). I knew that Bart Simpson had been elected both president and vice-president of the student body, but that Mr. Lorenzen decided to award the positions to Angela and April, the two twins who'd received the second- and third- most votes respectively, rather than hold a re-vote. I heard my science teacher Mrs. Keane admit to another teacher that the graffiti mural that had been sprayed onto the side of the auditorium one weekend and had been painted over despite overwhelming student protest was "Really fucking cool." And I remember that there were two books banned from the library, and that I was an accomplice in enforcing -- and subsequently undermining -- the ban on the second.

The first book was The Diary of Laura Palmer, a Twin Peaks spin-off that contained descriptions of, among other things, the titular prom queen being raped by a ghost. Needless to say, the complex Lynchian meditation on sexuality, voyeurism and the fluid nature of identity was lost on the dick-dumb 13 year olds passing the book back and forth beneath their desks and breathlessly scouring the pages for the word "pussy."

Banned.

The second book to be removed from the Montera Junior High School library was The Dream Dictionary: A Dictionary of Dreams. It was, as the name suggests, a guide for decoding the various signs and symbols from your dreams, but with a special emphasis on the dreamer being gay. Naked in public? Gay. Missed a test? Gay. Was there water in your dream? Gay. Did a little girl say something to you in your dream? Gay. Were there stairs? Gay. Were you having sex with that girl from your pre-algebra class while Mrs. McCabe ran around the room setting everything on fire? Gay. And weird. Of course none of us really knew what gay was, except that it had something to do with the reason we all covered our dicks with our hands when we walked past Mr. Miller in the locker room, and why we all kind of snickered whenever Mr. Black referred to his "wife."

And so it was, that The Dream Dictionary: A Dictionary of Dreams (I swear to god that was the title) caused a number or problems for students and teachers alike, and I was in the library when the decision was made by the librarian, who seemed genuinely upset at the prospect, to remove it from the shelves. Unfortunately it wasn't where it was supposed to have been, so she asked me to help her look for it. I dug through a pile of returned books while she looked through the stacks. I found it and, after debating it for a few minutes, dutifully turned it in. She thanked me, put it on her desk, and went about her business. I wondered what was to become of it, and left.

Word soon spread that the book had disappeared, to the chagrin of the bullies and the relief of the bullied. The prevailing opinion was that it had been stolen, probably by some rules-flaunting badass, and I was hesitant to reveal my role in what was the decidedly non-badass truth -- less out of shame in being a tool of literary censorship than in ruining the fun. A couple of days later I was back in the library and saw the book sitting unattended on the librarian's desk. I stole it, along with a book on how to make sound effects with your mouth, written by that one guy who wasn't Michael Winslow. It was the first time I'd ever stolen something. I felt horrible.

The idea was to use the book (the former, not the latter) as leverage to boost my cred, but I made the mistake of letting my friend Robert McKnight borrow it. The next day I saw him in the hallway at school, holding the book and bragging to a bunch of people that he'd been the one who'd stolen it. And so it goes.

Eventually the novelty of the book wore off, replaced by pages ripped from Playboy and Penthouse and decidedly seedier fare, but from time to time I've thought back on it and decided that it must have been some sort of elaborate joke -- like those gag books that say "All I Know About Women" on the cover and are filled with blank pages. Still, every once in a while I'll wake up from a particularly confounding dream and wonder to myself, what would The Dream Dictionary: A Dictionary of Dreams say about that one? You know what? I think I already know.

Then there are dreams that are so obvious, so head-slapping blatant that, to paraphrase my friend Joe, you wake up kind of mad at yourself. Late for football practice, naked in public, that sort of thing.

And so, the point at last.

Last night I had a dream that I was back in school, taking a math test I hadn't studied for. I then realized that I was at least a decade older than all of the other students in the class. I stood up to tell the teacher that I must be in the wrong room, but she said she wouldn't speak to me until I put some clothes on. I asked where I could get some clothes, but she told me there was no time, because I had to solve all of the equations in order to defuse the nuclear missile headed our way.The kids started crying, and she told them to hide beneath their desks while I hurried to finish the test. Of course, it turns out I was also illiterate, so I tried to squeeze beneath my desk, but it was a children's desk and I couldn't fit. The missile exploded outside the window and I was caught in the blast. I survived, but I knew I'd been poisoned. No time to worry about that, because there was an army of faceless robots walking toward us across the rubble. I told the kids in the class to hide in the shadows, then realized that was a terrible idea and that's the first place they'd look. If I didn't do something everyone would be killed and it would all be my fault, so I came up with the idea to sing the national anthem in order to distract the robots and to inspire everyone to rise up and fight. I stood up and started singing, but everyone was staring at me, and I got nervous and forgot the lyrics. Suddenly the robot leader morphs into Condoleeza Rice, and challenges me to a sword fight. I said that that was completely unfair because robots can't be hurt by swords, but nobody was listening. I screamed and screamed that robots can't be hurt by swords, everyone knows that! But the kids around me just keep telling me not to let them down. Then I woke up.

Dreams are an important window into our own subconsciousness, and are a way to defuse the various stresses and anxieties built up within us. I just wish my subconscious didn't think I was such an idiot.