JoannaB

I dreamed that dreams are like pancakes.

How are pancakes like dreams? I shape my dreams and cook them. They may start out shapeless and liquidy, but them they solidify like magic. When I eat my dreams, they become part of myself. Dreams are often circular: no end and no beginning, and often repeat. One can toss a pancake in the air, and watch it float like a magic carpet in a dream. Most people like pancakes/dreams. Just like a pancake may have blueberries or something else in it, a dream may hide a gem worth discovering. You pour syrup over a pancake to make is taste better and sweeter, and at times we disguise our dreams to be more palatable to ourselves. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and yet we hurry through it, and dreaming can similarly have a crucial often insufficiently recogniZed importance. My dreams spiritually nourish and sustain me. I do not have time to make pancakes except for on the weekend, and part of my mind has been fighting the dream recall effort as too much for everyday life. Just like pancakes dreams are shaped by culture (different international variations), there are family recipes, and individuals can experiment with making their own variations. Each of us can have our own pancakes, but it is possible to share a pancake (and many people claim one can share a dream). Even my picky water younger son likes pancakes, and dreams can appeal to everyone.

This is my third metaphor for dreams in my dreams: fish, airplanes, and pancakes. Unlike fish airplanes soar free instead of being confined by self-censorship to an aquarium, but unlike airplanes pancakes become part of me and are not up there but close at hand. Fish are slippery, airplanes and solid, and pancakes not so much - one can shape a pancake, whereas an airplane comes in a certain shape and cannot be actively changed. One can consume fish and pancakes (sort of like the biblical spiritual food of fishes and loaves of bread) whereas airplanes consume one. Will I let my predefined dreams consume me, or will I through dream interpretation and later through lucid dreaming redefine my dreams and incorporate them into myself? I am hoping for the later. I want to be in charge of my dreams! Though I am also in charge of my fish: I control every aspect of their environment in my fish tank - it is up to me whether they live and thrive or die. If I put in the effort and with proper knowledge I can control mg fish, though I may prefer to observe their antics instead and be surprised by what they teach me about nature. I can also control an airplane, but only if I am the pilot, not as a passenger in a commercial flight. Airplanes and dreams allow us to fly: something we humans long for. Pancakes are not as ordinary as they may appear, and baking pancakes or bread is an activity that shows greater sophistication, a higher level of culture - though airplanes are much more technologically advanced. Fish in the aquarium hobby appeal to aesthetics, whereas pancakes appeal to our taste buds - I am engaging a new sense here. Airplanes had added a louder sound, though fish tanks also have a sound component which is a white noise, but they ate not as loud as airplanes. Oh, and pancakes are much more mundane and approachable than airplanes: despite the potential for too much effort for every day pancakes, they could become an everyday food if I were motivated. Fish are part of my everyday life. Airplanes are not. Both fish and pancakes are something I am competent and capable at, whereas at least in waking lives I do not know airplanes on such a level and I rely on others to control (though in my dreams I could of course pilot an aircraft.