Playing in My Sleep

Two of my favorite dreams I’ve ever had:

1. Simply, I dreamed of the word “elevator.” I broke it down in the dream to these pieces:

elle—“she” in French, e (with accent on top)—“is” in Italian, va—“goes” in Italian, a—“to” in Italian, torre—tower in Italian.

So: elle e va a torre.

Elevator.

In short, she goes to the tower.


2. I am in a forest with my father and a bunch of friends. We are playing a game that has to do with the trees. In order to leave the forest, we must solve the game. The forest is darkening rapidly, and there is lightening off in the distance, so the pace feels rushed. A steep drop rims the edge of the woods, which is why we can’t get out. The game involves interpreting the patterns of single large paint dots on trees that have tremendous trunks. For instance, one has a large green spot, another a yellow one, another red. The name of the game is “semalog”—“sema” from “semantics,” “log” because of the trees, and because of the puzzles, “logarithms.”