On dreams

There seems to exist a general consensus that when people say "I had the wierdest dream last night", this is the prelude to one of the most boring conversations you can have. I'm not convinced we've really thought that through. I reckon that 'dream stories are boring' is accepted simply because it's accepted. Because, if you look at the facts, they are pretty bloody amazing.

Now perhaps people are turned off by dream stories because they are imaginary. Do those same people not like literature, poetry or films? Because that sounds a little bit like autism, which is generally regarded as being somewhat of an affliction (especially when you realise that autistics can't count cards like Rainman). Dreams are some of the most beautifully abstract things that our mind produced. Dreams are like stories made up by the lovechild of Terry Gilliam and a pretentious French avant-garde director who has taken LSD and then tried to make a film that's quite 'out-there'. And all this for free is pumped into the old brain box every night. Sometimes more than once. All in the comfort of your own bed.

Gotthilf Schubert wrote that "the dream is the liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature, a detachment of the soul from the fetters of matter". Dreams, therefore, are relaxing and stimulating, and most other things that are both of those are illegal and/or expensive.

If that is why dreams themselves are brilliant, dream stories are perhaps better because of one crucial fact - they can be interpreted. According to Freud, "the reading of dreams consists in replacing the events of the dream...by other events". This vagueness befits much of Freud's work, but in the hands of a layman, such as myself, it means we can have some fun. The interpretation of dreams is infinitely more enjoyable with only a scant knowledge of psychology (which the vast majority have). It means next time some dull bloke tells you about his dream where he was running with the bulls in Pamplona, your mind can tell you it's because he secretly is into bestiality. Or secretly Spanish. Whichever you find to be more scandalous. The possibilities are endless.

Finally, aside from all the Oedipal theories, dreams can offer a genuinely brilliant insight into the mind of someone, without them even knowing. Someone far cleverer than me suggested that asking someone their dreams would be a brilliant first-date gambit, because not only are you able to enter their psyche, and work out whether you are emotionally and spiritually compatible, but also means that you are not simply talking about yourself all evening.

So dreams therefore are a beautiful piece of mind-psychedelia that comes free with the possession of a brain. Admittedly the more creative the mind, the more brilliant the dreams (imagine what Hunter S. Thompson must have dreamt each night), but in fact dreams are arguably the most interesting aspect of a person's personality. So by hearing the dream stories you can a) amuse yourself with incestual slander b) weigh-up a life partner c) be treated to a free bit of theatre that takes less than a minute.

Incidentally, despite all written above, if 'Lost' finishes with it all being a dream, I'll be bloody furious...

Square One

In the times before television, radio commentators at football matches would describe the pitch in terms of a grid, so as to give the listener a greater appreciation of where play was taking place. Square one was the back corner of the pitch, which is often where balls played back to the goalkeeper would go. Hence the phrase 'back to square one'.

I told that story for two reasons. One, it's a good story, and it's always nice to know the genesis of our idiomatic language. Two, this is post number one, and I wanted to start off by outlining what this 'blog' is all about.

"Reasons to be cheerful" is an old song by Ian Dury and the Blockheads. It's basically just a list of things to be cheerful about. Hopefully my posts will be more fleshed out than that, but the narrative will be the same. I hope that my blog will be an antidote to the more bitter blogs out there (of which more later), although I also promise at not point will it get too saccharine. I attempt to walk the line between bitter and saccharine like a latter-day goldilocks.

But perhaps I should start by saying 'congratulations'. For you are here. You see, reason number one is that you are reading this post. It's not an ego thing, since it's amazing that you can read anything at all. In fact, existence is Square One.

Sorry to get crude here, but every male ejaculation contains around twenty-five to thirty million sperms. Each of us is one of those. That's already pretty impressive, and it gets more so. For each of your parents, and each of their parents, the odds are thrity million to one. Now, I am of the firm opinion that big numbers in science are useless. If it's not 'the size of 100 football pitches', or 'the number of grains of sand on the planet' I'm lost. But needless to say lots of thirty-million to ones are incredibly slim odds. Not only that, but none of our direct ancestors were any of the following: killed in childhood, infertile or a virgin.

Aside from the cold hard maths of it, since you are able to access the internet, and peruse blogs, I can also assume you also have some level of leisure time and disposable income. Congratulations. You can also read English, which makes you a valuable commodity in this globalised world. You are (I am assuming) a human, and therefore, according to Aristotle, you are a political animal, capable of using rhetoric and reason to form opinions. In other words, you are in possession of a great mind. So congratulations indeed.

Given all this, you would have thought that everybody would be cheerful. But no. In the superb Arnie film, "End of Days", Father Kovak says, "Satan's greatest trick was convincing man that he didn't exist". Maybe so, but I would argue that the internet's greatest trick is convincing us it is nothing but porn. Not so. There is something far more in abundance out there. Look at the comments on any video on YouTube, or on any Facebook group, or any of the millions of writers in the blogosphere (which after much consideration, is technically a sphere, since it covers the earth, in much the same way as the stratosphere). All are filled with bile, and resentment, and a general outlook that the world is a bit shit. But I don't think that. I think there's plenty to be cheerful for. And if I say 'cheerful' rather than 'ecstatic' or 'driven wild with craziness about', it's because some of them are low-key. But, I think reason number one is pretty bloody good.

And if you disagree, well then fuck you, you ungrateful sod.