A Pilgrim’s Digression

All week, I have dreamed about writing.

I can’t remember much about these dreams, except there is a desperate feeling to them. In the one dream I recall the best, I am back in school again. Grade level, or even my age, is kind of ambiguous. I feel like I am 33, but my classmates are all young pre-teen children.

I have to write a paper and deliver a report on a science topic that I find incredibly boring and incomprehensible. I don’t remember the topic, but it has something to do with plants. I procrastinate.

All night, I dream about trying to write this paper. There is nothing more to the dream than that. I worry and fret in my dream because I can’t write this paper. When I finally become desperate to produce a finished paper, I write two pages, but it is crap plagiarized from my textbook. I decide it will have to do, because I am simply not able to do any better.

At that point, the dream ended, only to pick up again the next night. When the dream resumes, I am supposed to deliver my paper to the class, but I am late for school. I am also unprepared. I did not bring my paper, and I do not even have a pencil or pen to write with. I rummage in a trashcan in the hallway until I find a pencil.

When I arrive in class, it is 2:30 and school is finished at 3:15. I think to myself, “People are already delivering their reports, so maybe I won’t have to to do mine today.” I can’t remember what I wrote in my paper, and since I did not bring it with me, I can’t review. I am sweating, hoping I won’t be called upon to deliver my report.

My teacher, it turns out, is Brendan’s kindergarten teacher. She smilingly reviews each student as their do their report. The reports by these youths are very well-done. One little girl brought in two large rabbits to illustrate…I don’t know what.

The rabbits turns vicious and chew each other’s ears off. Their mouths become bloody maws as they fight, and the teacher and student have to separate them. The teacher seems unaffected by the gory display, however, and the student is awarded an A for her report.

Another little girl is doing something with bean sprouts and maggots pegged to a cork board. That report gets an A. I am waiting to see a boy’s report, because everyone knows girls are overachievers anyway. Seeing a boy’s sloppy work will make me feel better.

Before that happens, the teacher calls on me. I stand up, sweaty and embarrassed, because I have nothing, not even notes to read from. I can’t even remember my paper topic. After stumbling through a sentence or two, basically saying nothing, the teacher sternly tells me to sit down.

I put my head down on my desk and cry, ashamed and hurt. Why did I screw up so badly? Why couldn’t I write this one, stupid paper? Why did I then forget what little I wrote at home?

I seem a hopeless case, doomed to failure.

There is one more dream about writing, which I dreamed last night. In this dream, I have an idea for a short story. In the dream, it seems like a really good idea for a story, but I can’t remember it upon waking. Essentially, the dream is about me writing the story: discovering a title (now forgotten), and writing the story paragraph by paragraph, which actually occurs in the dream.

I remember thinking in my dream, “When I wake up, I can easily reproduce this story!” But when I do wake up, the story fades. I forget the title. I forget the content. It may have been brilliant, but it is gone.