Analyze This

I’m not sure what to make of it, but last night, I had a dream I was staring at a text on my phone.

I don’t remember what the text said, or who it was from, but my general sense is that it was unremarkable.

I already dislike how often I am sucked into my phone screen during the day, so to find my subconscious mind indulging my waking bad habit was worrisome. In dreams, I want to fly, or watch my neighbor get eaten by a lizard, or win a singing contest. I don’t want to be checking my phone.

I was getting pretty down on my dream state of affairs when I seized on the first line of one of my favorite poems, “The Waking” by Theodore Roethke. “I wake to sleep.” Conversely, I slept to wake, so maybe my issue wasn’t a sad lack of imagination, but the stubborn refusal to let go of being simply and imperfectly conscious.