Poison ivy-licking dogs must mean something

How many times have we heard that a dream is our subconscious trying to tell us something? Dreams are supposed to have a deeper meaning, and if we dissect them, we’ll have more insight into … ourselves.

Some people believe dreams are messages from God, and if we’re wise enough, we can understand their meaning. Still others believe dreams are premonitions or maybe deja vu, something we’ve done in a previous life.

If any of these theories is true, how do we interpret the dreams?

We’ve all had the universal dreams. You know, the ones where you fall off a cliff or out of bed, and it jerks you awake.

Who hasn’t had the dream in which you accidentally go to work naked, but no one has noticed, so you try to ease out of the room before you’re spotted? What about the underwater dream in which you can’t hold your breath any longer and find out you can breathe perfectly well beneath the sea? Or the one in which the poker-playing, cigar-smoking dogs from that famous painting break into your house and lick your whole family from head to toe with their poison-ivy saliva tongues?

What – you guys didn’t have that one? That’s OK – I’ve dreamed it enough for all of us. So what could it possibly mean?

When I was in the fourth grade, I had two dreams over and over. I dreaded going to sleep at night for fear of reliving them. I can understand now why that particular year was different and might have brought on strange dreams.

One possible reason was that my sister’s appendix had burst in the night, and when I tried to wake her the next morning, I couldn’t. Dad carried her out of the house, an unconscious rag doll. The doctors were just barely able to save her.

Another reason was that the same year, my brother went so high on a swing at school, he started to go over the top. The chain went slack, and he fell 25 feet to the ground onto his head. He was unconscious for several days and hospitalized for weeks, but he survived.

OK, I had some emotional turmoil that year that brought on some freaky dreams. But what can I make of them?

In dream No. 1, I’m standing in front of my school when a snake van pulls up. After the driver gets out and goes inside the school, I’m the only one who notices the back door swing open and hundreds of snakes slither out.

Instead of the screaming pandemonium you’d expect, the kids laugh and run around, thinking the snakes are cool. I see my sister reach down and grab an 8-foot boa constrictor by the tail and swing it over her head like a lasso.

I scream for her to put it down, but, of course, she can’t hear me. I run to her in slow motion (why is that?), but by the time I get to her, the snake is wrapped completely around her, squeezing her. Her head is bulging like a pumpkin, and I try in vain to peel the snake off.

Thankfully, this is when I wake up.

OK, so maybe the snake signifies her appendix trying to kill her, or maybe it means that if she doesn’t start listening to me, I’ll strangle her. I don’t know, but I do know that every time I woke up from that recurring dream, I yelled at her for being an idiot.

Dream No. 2 is the one that really stumps me. It’s so dang stupid I’m almost embarrassed to tell you about it.

There’s a knock on my family’s front door. I open it, and there stand the famous poker-playing dogs. They’re wearing leather vests and walking upright.

They are brash and rude and barge into my house with guns. We’re all scared and ask what they want from us, and – here’s where it gets weird – one at a time, they take us into the bathroom and lick us. But their tongues have poison-ivy saliva.

We’re terrified of these dogs, but they’re just there to hold us at gunpoint and give us an itchy rash.

Now, I challenge any one of you to find the message in that dream. I’ve waited 30 years for a rational explanation. I’ve dreamed this off and on for more than a year. That can’t be normal.

Dreams. Are they like Nostradamus’ quatrains, filled with hidden predictions that you recognize only years after the fact? Or are they a clear message to stop eating nachos and salsa right before bed?

Whatever the case, you can stop pretending. I know you’ve all had the cigar-smoking, poison-ivy-licking, pistol-packing, poker-playing dog dream at least once. It’s universal.