h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've mentioned before that my recurring dream involves having to be at an airport to catch a flight, and nearly always being late or unable to get there, or hampered from getting on the plane once at the airport, or getting on the plane but the plane is unable to take off or complete its journey in some way. It very often involves being on the way to the airport but realising I don't have my passport or ticket and knowing there's not enough time to go back for it.

I started having this dream at least 25 years ago, and in it I was always trying to catch a plane flying to America, so naturally I associated it with my desire to come and live in America which, at the time, seemed to be going nowhere. A dream analyst would probably have made the link broader than that and said something about unfulfilled ambitions in general.

Which could be the case because I continued having the dream even after I came to Austin and had a green card firmly placed in my hand.

Very occasionally though, maybe one time out of ten, I make it to the airport in time, I get on the plane and the plane reaches its destination. Which is what happened in the dream I had last night. Mostly. I was in a taxi on the way to Heathrow, which we reached. At some point, while I was in a food joint at the airport eating breakfast I think, I remembered the time, looked at the clock and realised that I had plenty to spare. I think I must have woken up soon afterwards because I don't remember anything else.

I'd like to be able to regard dream analysis as quackery and tosh, and I do regard a lot of psychoanalysis in the same way, but when you have the the same dream for years on end, and with the human mind being such a complex and largely unknown machine, it's hard to dismiss such recurring dreams as meaningless. But I'm certainly not paying anyone to tell me what it might or might not mean.

Zumtimes a banana iz juzt a banana... Anna.

I've never had recurring dreams, but I have had recurring dream themes. Lately I've had a similar theme. Basically I'm late for class because I forgot that I was enrolled in college. There seems to be some confusing in my mind about whether I have a job or classes and I'm unclear on what job or which classes and how long I've been missing my classes because I've been going to my job.

Then as I start becoming more lucid the theme of the dream simply becomes not being able to complete a task. I get lost crossing a campus or I can't find something I need, or I can't find a passage in a book because it is impossible to read anything in a dream and I know this and wake up.

Oh, and if you're not familiar with the reference, it's from a very early SNL skit.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75oherstory1.phtml

I have similarly themed anxiety dreams. I figure it's my brain reminding me that I can't control anything. Best laid plans, etc.

recurring dreams about travelling seem quite common. Or quite common among the people I talk about dreams to, let's put it that way.

Mine is most definitely related to two real-life "things" one is that I went to boarding school and was, therefore constantly packing*, the other is my lovely military dad who had a pathalogical loathing of being late for anything and issued reminders about how long until our ETD.

So my recurring dream is that I have to go somewhere, and have to be at an airport/port/ferry terminal/station. I have packed and, as I always do, open a drawer to check for the nth time that I have emptied it and everything is packed. But the draw is full of the things I need to pack. Someone (either I don't see them or it is me) is pressuring me to hurry up. It is getting desperate but I can't get it done fast enough.

And then I wake up in a cold sweat.



*I have a lifetime loathing of packing bags and suitcases even to go on holiday and would pay good money to have someone to do it for me.