Dreaming

MOST HUMANS, I have read, have an attention span approximately equal to that of a goldfish of average intelligence. That would be, so some experts in cognition have determined, right at eight seconds. Not withstanding the details, it remains readily observable that, for the most part, humans much prefer speaking to listening, much prefer listening to themselves than to others. We are, above all else, inerested in ourselves. That's what we spend most of our hot air doing; talking about ourselves. This I use, whether correctly or not, to explain my recurring dream, my semi-nghtmare. The oft repeated scenario is this: When I go to bed at night, its barely night. As I age, I tend to pack it in ever earlier, and to awaken and arise ever earlier. A habit of long stanidng, I turn on the radio by my bedstand, and listen to classical music. Eventually, if I'm lucky, I fall asleep, the classical music playing all night. Sometimes I awaken during one of my favorite symphonies or violin concertos, feeling fortunate, determined to stay awake and listen to its conclusion. It never works. I'm always back in dreamland before the end, and annoyed at myself the following morning, which is of course nonsensical, to be angry about sleeping well. As sunrise approaches, the radio station, (NPR) concudes its overnight concert, and shifts to news. Human voices take over for orchestras. That's usually when I am in my deepest sleep, REMing, engaged in vivid dreaming. In my dream, I am in the presence of the people doing the talking, a listener in a room with people, listening, and wanting to talk, wanting to express my opinion about the topic at hand which is usually some news item of the day. Only I can't. Nobody wants or is willing to stop talking about themselves and listen to me. I raise my hand, I stand up, I make noises, but to no avail. On goes the conversation, in my presence,the participants seemingly oblivious to me presence, let alone to my desire to participate. First, in the depths of my slumber, I become frustrated, then angry, then frantic. What happens after that tends to vary, but the most frequent result is that I sit stonily in the corner, seething, or storm out of the room in anger and disgust, amazed at the rudeness of the other speakers. Then, I wake up, still in the same frame of mind. By the time I feed the cats I'm usually calmed down,and have reminded myself that "it was just a dream". A good hot cup of coffee helps assauge my injured feelings. By the time mid morning rolls around, it all seems to have been much ado about nothing. But it takes a while. The voices on the radio, talking among themselves, reading, discussing, and analyzing the news, have broken through to my dreaming subconscious, and taken over my dream. I estimate the number of times this scenario has imposed itslef upon my life at several dozen. Wy then do I persist in m yhabit of turning on the radio and leaving it on while I fall asleep, and all night? Why, because I love the classical music, it helps me relax and get sleepy, and by the time I atually fall asleep, its too late to turn it off. I have accepted the reality that this roughly recurring dream tells me something fundamental about myself. I tells me that out here in real life, I feel undervalued. I feel that what I have to offer is unwanted, unappreciated. Most conversations in which I try to participate do in reality take the same pattern. I mention something about myself which to me seems irresistably fascinating, and nobody cares. I try to steer the conversation away from the minor details of the lives of other people,and towards the minor details of my life or to make general, but oh so profound remarks about people in general, or about history, current events, or whatever. Almost invariably, the other person or people steer the topic right back to themselves, the topic about which they know most, and are most interested in, to the exclusion of nearly all else. It becomes a competition for attention and power, as all conversations ultimately are, it has been convincingly argued. My only recourse seems to be to go right on listening to classical music, and dreaming. So far I haven't figured out a way of editing out the news. My salvation is that my attention span is no greater than that of a goldfish of average intelligence. Or, as T.S. Eliot wrote in concluding a poem: "Till human voices wake us, and we drown"...