I Have A Dream...Sometimes

Happy early MLK Day! I have very little in common with Dr. King, including dreams. He had one, and I--well, I might have dreams, but I almost never remember them (I've posted about one of my "dreams" before, but probably at least 50% of the details there were filled in after I woke up).

It seems like everyone remembers their dreams better than I do. People are always posting about their dreams on Facebook. My mom and sister have weird ones. My friend Amy IMs me about vivid dreams she had involving our mutual friends and/or So You Think You Can Dance contestants. Another friend, Larissa, remembers her dreams so well, so often, that she sometimes has to blog about them in bunches. Remembering dreams is the widespread ability that I'm second-most jealous about not possessing (whistling has the top spot).

I probably average about one morning a month where I wake up and remember anything from my dreams, and probably once a year (or less) do I remember any in-depth details. It happens so infrequently that today I can easily recall my most vivid dream ever, even though it happened a little over 12 years ago, when I was a missionary in Scotland.

In my dream, I was in a large room, empty of furniture but crowded with missionaries in dark suits and name tags. I only knew one of the Elders, a big guy from Germany who had served in my previous zone. I was talking to an unknown missionary when another brought me a phone and told me I had a call.

It was Elder Mark Buffington (not a stage name), my first district leader, who had finished his mission about two months earlier. As we were talking (most likely about Star Wars: Episode I, which he was super-excited to see as soon as he got back to the States--hey, we were young), the German guy, Elder Quast, ran up to me holding a loaf of Wonder Bread and pointed at something on the package while yelling "He was right! The space monkey from Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator was right!" over and over.

And that's the dream. I remembered it clearly the next morning, but I was very confused. On the next Preparation Day, I wrote to a friend named Ceianna, and asked her to read the book for me, check if there were any monkeys, and report to me anything they said or did. (Ceianna was a girl from my freshman ward at BYU who wrote bizarrely entertaining letters to a bunch of us who were serving missions, so I figured I could give her this assignment without her thinking I was crazy.) I expected Roald Dahl's pages to contain some grand key to sharing the gospel, but alas, she didn't read the book.

So I did, within a week or two of returning home (about 18 months after having the dream), the first time I'd read the Chocolate Factory sequel since elementary school. Guess what? No space monkeys (though the Vermicious Knids were shape shifters and could probably appear as monkeys if they wanted to). And no amazing insights for missionaries. It was just a ridiculous dream.

But at least I remembered it! I wonder what I could do to remember them more easily. Maybe I could follow Nephi's example: after his dad described his Tree of Life Dream, Nephi prayed to have the same dream--and an angel basically escorted Nephi through the various parts of the dream and interpreted it for him. (This is all covered in this week's Sunday School lesson! So timely!) Who knew the Book of Mormon was so much like Inception?

You know what else is like Inception? The Bachelor. At least according to my friend Billy's awesome Bachelor blog. You should check it out. That Ben sure is dreamy.