On Dreams

Do you ever wake up with a song in your head, and you don't know where it's from, whether you've heard it before, or if you simply just made it up in your dreams? And you keep looping it in your mind because it's like playing hot potato--once the music stops, you lose it.

Yesterday, to further procrastinate working on Nanowrimo, I got onto the subject of Freudian dream analysis, which I learned about from good ol' Desire last spring. Now, I am inclined to think the Freudian methodology is entirely bunk (as Ellis said, "You could milk sex out of a stone."), but like sleight of hand chicanery, it is a lot of fun to demonstrate on other people.

For instance:

...I wanted to attack the witch but everyone was afraid.

The classic question: which which? The action takes place while traveling. If we take "witch" as an overdetermined word, perhaps it suggests an uncertainty over your options. Which path to take? Which programs to apply to? Which future to seek out, if that is even something you can control? "Attacking the which," I diagnose graduation anxiety. Meanwhile, everyone else around you is also afraid and anxious.

So what about myself? Well, the usual freakshow aside, I remember one bit distinctly from last night. I was coming in for a job interview to be the restaurant critic of the New York Times, and the interview required me to meet with my three predecessors: Mimi Sheraton, Bryan Miller, and Ruth Reichl. As part of the interview, I was required to do tastings and give my opinion on the spot. For Mimi, it was cognac, for Bryan, beer, and Ruth presented wine. At that point, I panicked and fled.

There really isn't much to analyze here. I recently finished reading Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, her memoirs from being food critic at the NYT. Never before have I fallen in love so quickly with a book; I decided I had to buy it before the first chapter was up. Seriously, if you enjoy eating, you will enjoy this book. Naturally, I've been toying with the idea of what it'd be like to be a food critic, and how to get there in oh, 20 years. It seems like my odds at helming a food critic position at a major publication are even lower than being granted tenure at a prestigious university. Oy veh. And my dream pointed to my strongest weakness for this job: although I'm fairly literate about food ingredients, I know next to nothing about alcohol, particularly wine. Hold on while I kick myself for not taking wines last spring.

And I just lost the hot potato.