The Trouble with Dreams

Last night, I had a dream that I was on the Oprah show. I know you're starting to think, "Oh dear God, is she really going to talk about Oprah?" The answer is yes. But bear with me. I have a point.
In this dream, I was on Oprah because I had won some sort of award for my work. Apparently I wrote something that had to do with Elie Wiesel's novel, Night, and whatever I wrote was being recognized as excellent work. Elie Wiesel (who has been on Oprah before) wanted to congratulate me on my success and meet with me to discuss my work on the show. Pretty incredible right?
Now, there are at least two different ways to dream. In the first, everything is fuzzy and confused. You are supposed to be you, but you look different and everyone around you is different somehow. Your mother is Susan Sarandon instead of your mother. And maybe you're supposed to be a woman but you're a man with a beard instead, and before you can ask the guy next to you for the time, he turns into an elephant and skates away on rollerblades. With dreams like this, you wake up wondering if you need therapy or if it was just something you ate the night before.
But the OTHER kind of dream is the dream that is so realistic, down to the finest detail, that you wonder if it actually happened; or if it will happen in the future. My Oprah dream felt like the latter. Now I'm not saying I'm going to be on Oprah and meet Elie Wiesel, but something about this dream struck me as significant. Everything about it felt incredibly real. I was wearing an outfit that I have in my closet now and would probably think appropriate for Oprah's show. I was walking through the studio with the production manager, checking every mirror that we passed to make sure that my hair still looked ok (which I would definitely do in real life) because I was so nervous. When we got on the set, Oprah was introducing the topic and was about to invite Elie Wiesel on stage. The plan was to catch up with Wiesel first and discuss the success of his “Foundation for Humanity”. Then she would invite me out and we'd all talk together about the novel and my piece. People had started suggesting that Wiesel was going to ask me if I would like to add my work to his novel as a supplemental piece to appear at the end of the book. They said that was why he wanted to meet me here and have the public stage. I decided not think about that possibility, just in case they were wrong. It was already amazing just to meet him (and Oprah!) and be able to talk about my work on television. But on the side of the set, I couldn't help imagining what such an offer would feel like. It would mean that students all over the world would read my work and discuss it along with Wiesel’s novel. It would put me in a completely different league as a writer and mean everything to me. But I tried not to think about it and worried about my hair again instead.

Seeing the audience and all the cameras had my stomach in hysterics and I thought for a moment that I was going to collapse. But then I saw my family in the audience. They took up an entire row and they were all waving and smiling like it was the first time they'd seen me in years. They were close to where I was standing on the set, so I asked the production manager if I had time to run over and say Hi. He said yes, as long as I was only a minute-we were on commercial break. I ran over to them and immediately felt better. My Mom told me I just needed to remember to breath and speak slowly and clearly. My Dad said I looked beautiful and very important. My brothers made fun of me, as they do, and all was right with the world. I went back to the side of the stage with the production manager. Wiesel and Oprah had started talking about my work and I was going on in less than a minute. When I heard Oprah say my name and the audience started clapping, I took a deep breath, just like Mom said, and started to walk onto the cozy living room set.
There is another thing about dreams that I know we've all experienced. Everything you've ever wanted is about to happen for you...and then you wake up. Usually this happens when you're about to kiss Brad Pitt or whoever. Or maybe you just won the lottery and you're about to start the engine on your new Porsche. Whatever the dream is, nothing feels more disappointing than the moment you wake up and realize you wont get to see what happens. I was about to meet Oprah and Elie Wiesel and have my work publicized on national television, and I chose that moment to wake up. As we're all well aware, I don't have a job at the moment and don’t have any reason to wake up at a particular time. There was no alarm clock or startling sound to stir me, so this was nothing more than the Dream World messing with my head.
Still, the whole thing felt so realistic, that I have to believe there is something in it. I have a hard time thinking seriously about ever being on Oprah or meeting Wiesel, but perhaps I'll write something someday that will have me recognized in some sort of forum. I think one of the most important things about the dream is that I was about to be made hugely successful, but I still felt like me. Even more important, I had the tremendous support of my family there with me. That part felt more real than anything else, and it's the part that I like to think about the most. Many families would call me a fool for leaving a teaching career to become a struggling writer, but not my family. They've been nothing but supportive of me and my crazy dreams, and I know they'll be there in the audience cheering for me if I ever make it to any stage to be recognized.
So I'll keep on dreaming.