Anyway, last night I caught last Friday's last hour, the usual Friday "open lines." A lot of people were calling in telling George about their most significant dreams (the sleep movies, as opposed to the one-day -I'll-have-my-own-reality-show type). I was amazed at how vividly some people claim to remember dreams they had when they were little children. Of course I have vivid dreams all the time, but the ones I remember clearly upon waking are few and far between, and they certainly kind of evaporate over time (how many times, like this morning, do I wake in the middle of a particulary lively dream and can almost feel the memory dissolve and crinkle before my mind's eye?). So as I'm listening to people's most memorable dreams last night, as I myself was trying to drift away to dreamland, I started thinking about one particular dream that has stayed with me over the years, one of about five or six that haven't faded away altogether.
It must have been at least twenty years ago. In my dream I was ushered into a series of increasingly more secretive rooms by a few people who were strangers to me. Without knowing what was going on, I knew it was important. Finally I reached the final room. There, very much alive, but obviously on his death bed, lay Lenin, the (in)famous leader of the nascent Soviet Union. Lenin, himself, he of the steely facial hair and the imposing forehead. The purpose of my visit, it soon became clear, was to be allowed the obvious honor of touching the dying legend's forehead. I timidly stuck out my hand and Lenin actually leaned forward a bit off his death pillow, and I touched the famous forehead. End of dream, as far as I can remember.
Now eventually I have come to regard the dream as completely meaningless, the product of some short in my dusty synapses. But there was a time when the dream fascinated me for what it might mean. Could I (who, despite what some of my trueblood Red-state friends in this decidedly Blue county might think, possesses no Communist sympathies except when somebody brings a plate of homemade brownies to work) be destined to grow some cool facial hair, lose even more of my head hair, and end up leading the second great American Revolution, after having the torch passed through that forehead touch? So obsessed with finding the meaning to this dream was I that one crazy night in the French Quarter of New Orleans I decided to blow my last ten bucks not on a very budget tattoo but on a very budget Tarot card reading from one Madame Knew. In her smoky, ill-lit parlor I told Madame Knew all I could remember of the dream. She nodded her head gravely and then began turning over cards, making all sorts of unintelligble noises as each card was revealed. Unfortunately Madame Knew was a struggling single mother of four misbehaving boys; one of them had apparently mixed his baseball card collection in with his mother's Tarot deck, so when the ultimate card was flipped it ended up being a 1979 Topps Bucky Dent card. Madame Knew winced and shuddered then regained her composure and shrugged her shoulders. "Well," she looked at me with daggers in her eyes, "if you're a Red Sox fan you're destined for a life of continual heartbreak. If not, well, enjoy your great smile. End of session." She swept the cards off the table and ran out screaming, "Beauregarde, I'm gonna wring your little neck."
And that's it. When I think of the Lenin dream, as I did last night, I just smile.
Lenin, or as more intelligent, sophisticated people call him...
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