I know dreams don't literally come true. But I sure wish this one could.
As I've gotten older, the dreams I have at night have become less vivid. No longer about falling from the sky or walking down the street with no clothes on, my dreams now tend to be a bit more prosaic,.a bit more down-to-Earth. Because of that, I don't really seem to remember them when I wake up as much as I used to.
And that's why the dreams I had two nights ago really stuck with me.
The dream wasn't about anything weird or strange; it didn't involve zombies, dragons, Jennifer Aniston, or me heading down the street wondering where I had left my underwear. It was another in a series of prosaic, boring dreams. No one died, no one was in danger; my subconscious wasn't trying to tell me anything. It was just a dream. But it was an amazing dream, at least for me. It's a dream that has stuck with me the past two days, and a dream that makes me wish dreams really could come true. Some of you may laugh when I tell you about the dream, while others will think it makes perfect sense.
What was the dream that's stuck with me the past few days? Well, I had a dream that I was wandering around downtown Marquette, taking pictures with my 20 megapixel Nikon DSLR camera, which is something that I actually do all the time.
But in my dream, I was doing it in 1935.
That's right—the dream that I had involved me having a piece of modern technology in my hand and using it to document buildings and people that were around decades before I was even born. Instead of looking at the black & white pictures that exist from that era, I was able to capture structures that burned or were torn down in vivid, stunning color. In my dream, I saw the old Marquette in a way that I'd never actually be able to in real life. In my dream, I was able to walk down Washington & Front Streets and take pictures of the Opera House, of the Union National Bank building, of the Nester Block, of all the bars that existed on the 300 block of South Front, and all the old hotels that existed around the train station.
And all the pictures I was taking of those amazing old buildings were in color.
I know; I'm a dork. You won't get any argument from me. The fact that, in my dream, I was able to walk down the street and know exactly where each old building was is a testament to that. But just to have the chance to break multiple rules of physics and to go back in time, even if it was in a dream, was amazing. I've poured over hundreds of historic photographs in a decade-plus of doing programs for the History Center, but those were all black & white. In the back of my mind, I always wondered what those buildings looked like in person, what they looked like to those who passed by them on a daily basis.
And thanks to my dream, I now know. Kind of. I mean, whatever images popped into my brain while I was sleeping weren't true. They weren't real. They were just stylized images, put together with whatever clouding and shading my unconscious mind generated. But still...they were in color. Unlike every other time in my life when I've glanced at those long-gone buildings, they looked like living, vital structures, and not just mono-chromed images from decades past. I realize no one else would probably ever have a dream like that, but I still think that it was an amazing way to spend part of an REM cycle.
It's just too bad a dream like that can never come true.
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