* Nicotine Dreams

As I briefly mentioned in a previous blog entry, the warnings for the nicotine patch include those damned "vivid dreams." If these occur—oh, no!—one must "consult" one's "physician." (Now there's a waste o' money.) With the patch on as I sleep (to misquote Wordsworth), "I am the dreamer—Nicotine, the dream." I haven't dreamt so well since I earnestly kept a dream journal, as a budding Freudian/Jungian in my undergraduate days. Dreams that seemingly last for hours on end; dreams that are seemingly as cogently plotted as a movie. (Okay, as coherent as a double feature of two movies by David Lynch, maybe.)

And Freud is right again, at least regarding wish-fulfillment. I'm dreaming once again—or more obviously, at least—about things I want to do, not about anxieties I have about waking life: 1) I'm playing guitar for long periods of time (and swear I can ALMOST remember new licks I've come up with in the dream); 2) I'm spending lots of time with my daughter, and with other family members whom I haven't seen in years (incl. my dear dead maternal grandma); 3) I'm even having quite—uh—Freudian dreams about old girlfriends, and, again, for LONG periods of time; 4) and finally, yes, I'm even smoking the occasional cigarette!

Don't pinch me. I'm dreaming.