Wednesday, July 04, 2007

A Theme for Reason

Other people's dreams - don't you hate them. There is no excuse for recounting your dreams to your friends or to anyone else. People are, in general, not really interested in you or your doings; so they are certainly got going to be interested in the random ramblings of your mind while you sleep. So, if tempted to recount a dream, for pity's sake desist. Unless of course you're Carl Gustav Jung, whose autobiography "Memories, Dreams, Reflections" inspired a flood of lurid and symbol-laden dreams for many months after I read it. Just try it.

Last night I dreamt I was in a horse race, a sprint. I was waiting at the start in a high draw close to the rails. I moved from my alloted slot into a slightly better draw even closer to the rails. When the stall gates opened I got a flier and hugging the rail had an early lead. Then out of nowhere another sprinter flew by (our horses had disappeared) and was clearly going to win. His name (I know the horses had gone, but dreams are supposed to be irrational) was Paddy's Place - there is such a horse but he's no star. About 50 yards from the winning post, he swerved off the course and began to play football with some kids nearby. I swept by to victory, breaking the tape (like in a sprint) in style. I immediately began to worry that my changing stall would be spotted when the race was rerun on TV.

Afterwards in the changing room I encountered a surly Kieran Fallon who started berating me for taking advantage of a fixed race. "You're one to talk" I responded indignantly. A bit unkind that as he hasn't been tried yet. He didn't however mention the change of stall so I was confident I'd keep the race.

Maybe I need to lay off the horse racing for a while.