1001 Nights Cast

My psychiatrist says that there are no such things as bad dreams. Some dreams, he explains, are meaningless, the product of a sort of mental (as opposed to dental) flossing which gets rid of jetsam and flotsam in the brain.

Some dreams should be taken seriously because they can reveal important parts of your psyche which have previously been inaccessible. These are called dreams of significance.

However the difficulty lies in distinguishing between these two different types of dreams. The reason psychiatrists can charge enormous fees is because they know about dreams. Practitioners of alternative medicine also often possess this skill. They charge less, but because their skill is not recognised by the government you won’t get a Medicare rebate (or the prestige of a psychiatric visit).

I have been working on my latest dream of significance over a number of psychiatric sessions. My psychiatrist deemed it a dream of significance because it contains my parents (always significant) and a car (a symbol of modernity and of getting somewhere). It also involves my childhood dog, Bessie, who is, rather obviously, a symbol of childhood, although her big sharp teeth add an edge to the dream. I have found in my excursion into psychiatry that childhood is an extremely edgy time.

However, I do wonder if the psychiatrist finds this a ‘dream of significance’ because he needs to pay for the big, red shiny, expensive car which is parked in the ‘Doctors only’ space at the front of his building. I wonder if this car is a symbol of modernity and of getting somewhere for him. I wonder if it fulfils a deep need.

I go to a psychiatrist because I have been diagnosed as clinically multi-phobic. The term ‘clinical’ gives an extra edge to any diagnosis. My phobias include various foods—avocados, butter, cheese, and anything with oil, as well as foods that might be acceptable as single items, but become objects of fear when pressed together in a sandwich. I saw a cartoon once where a woman pressed sandwiches together under her arm and I’ve never been able to eat a sandwich since.

I am also phobic about crossing wet bridges, slipping on shopping centre floors, mossy cliff tops and being confined in a caravan that smells of cooking grease. Some of these phobias are obviously more important in daily life than others and my psychiatrist tends to concentrate on these. We’ve done very little on caravans.

I am also phobic about committing myself in a relationship, but this doesn’t interfere with my daily life much, as men are scared off when I tell them about my sandwich phobia.

Anyway, back to my dream of significance. In the dream my parents leave the house, my mother popping back four times to check she has turned off the toaster, the iron, the back porch light and left water for the dog. This actually happened in real life so it has no metaphorical significance.

My father, meanwhile, stands, looking gloomily at the car. Again, this has no special significance because my father spent his life looking gloomily at inanimate objects. He had a feeling they would let him down, which is of course true of everyone in their relationship to inanimate objects, but my father took it personally.

The dog Bessie, however, is behaving atypically. In real life she barked when someone knocked on the door, but otherwise, spent her time asleep. In fact, by the time we noticed she was dead, she had been dead some time, completely cold and quite stiff. In the dream, she jumps around the car, growling at something underneath it and generally behaving in a highly excitable manner.

When my psychiatrist asked me what Bessie’s behaviour suggested, I said that maybe it indicated my wish for a more eventful and interesting childhood.

‘More interesting?’ he said, and raised his eyebrows.

In the dream, my parents ignore Bessie and get into the car. I am not with them, but I feel excited because my father says, ‘Let’s go to the beach, come on, let’s go,’ in a way that was not like him at all. It was like him to say nothing at all, drive to the local shopping centre, wait in the car while my mother shopped and then drive home.

This, it seemed to me added weight to my theory of the dream being about longing for a more eventful childhood. One trip to the beach would have been nice.

In the dream my father starts the car, yells out, ‘This is life!!!’ puts it into reverse, backs down the drive and runs over Bessie.

At this point, I told my psychiatrist about Bessie’s dull death in real life. Having my dog run over would have given me something interesting to talk about. As it was, I was embarrassed by my mother’s weirdness and my father’s deep gloom.

In the dream, they stop the car when they run over Bessie. But then they get out, go back to the carport, and my father looks gloomily at the pool of oil the car had left on the concrete floor. My mother goes back into the house to check she has turned off the toaster, the iron, the back porch light and left water for the dog, who is now, of course dead.

‘My life has just fallen into place,’ I say to my psychiatrist. ‘I didn’t just need a more exciting childhood; I need a more exciting life now. I don’t need to worry about oil and grease and mossy cliff tops. I want to live.’

I decide that since this dream was wrapped up in a few minutes that I won’t pay for a full psychiatric consultation. After all, I did the wrapping. On the way out, I glance at my psychiatrist’s car parked in the ‘Doctors only’ space. I too would like to own such a symbol of modernity and getting somewhere. I think it would fulfil a deep need.