[Nfbc-info] dreams

[Ken Volonte]

Hi Ms. Sesic.  I'd be interested in talking about how I dream.  In fact, 
Xavier's questions might have caused me to have this dream last night.

    I dreamed that I was a little boy again visiting my Aunt Teresa and 
Uncle Joe.  They lived in a big house with an apple orchard.  Every once in 
a while, Teresa and Joe would have to talk about something that was between 
them, and I would go out into their social hall, a big echoey room where 
they would have dancing parties from time to time.

    There was a record player in there, and I would play records of Serbian 
dance music and I would dance and imagine myself to be a great circus 
performer, or a base ball player.  You could imagine anything when you were 
dancing to that wonderful fast music of mandolins and fiddles.

    So I dreamed that I was back in that hall, but it was different.  I now 
live on a street where there's lots of traffic noises, and so I was not just 
dancing to the music.  I was at the ocean.  I could hear the waves against 
the shore, and I could smell the salt air.  I could also smell Aunt Teresa 
in her kitchen.  She was making one of her apple pies.  I could smell the 
sweetness of the apples and the cinnamon and cardamom she used in the crust. 
all the while, I danced.

    I haven't thought about Aunt Teresa and Uncle Joe for a long time.  They 
are gone away now, and I haven't thought about them because it makes me sad, 
but the curiosity of a little boy opened the doors of **memory and made me 
dream of those wonderful times when I was young and without a care in the 
world.

    Let me talk a little about this dream, for it is like all of my dreams 
in its structure.  Did you notice Xavier, that I didn't see anything in my 
dream?  I danced, I heard music and the ocean.  I smelled a pie baking in 
the kitchen further along the corridor, but I didn't see anything.  That's 
because I've never been able to see.  So in my dreams, I use all the other 
senses available to me.  I touch and here, and smell and taste the salt air 
on my tongue.

    Suppose I were to say the word "horse".  You might see the word, or you 
might see a picture of a horse, or you might see a real horse.  For me, I 
can smell the horse and leather of the saddle.  I can imagine me combing the 
horse and I can feel the sweat after a long ride.  At the same time, I can 
feel myself sitting on the horse and eating an orange.  I can feel the 
texture of the orange peal and taste the prickly sweetness of the citrus. 
Perhaps this is why I write poems and stories, because  I can feel all these 
things and remember and dream.  Again, there is no sight involved in my 
description, but I bet you could see that horse and taste that orange too.

    My friend Ellen used to be able to see until she was 16 years old, so in 
her dreams, she can sometimes see the people in her family as she could once 
see them.  When she dreams about people she met after she lost her sight, 
they are just blobs or splotches of color.  Her dreams used to upset her 
because there were some things she could see and some things that she 
couldn't.  Eventually, she stopped seeing in her dreams just like I don't 
see in my dreams.

    One more thing about my dreams is this.  When I dream about being a 
little boy, I'm always dancing or running.  Now in my dreams, I'm always 
walking or riding a bus It's horrible riding the bus especially when I'm in 
the back seat because the ride is bumpy and I wake up with a headache.  You 
meet a lot of nice people on the bus or on a walk through town.  You meet a 
lot of nice people in letters too.  Thank you Xavier for asking about how 
blind people dream.  I hope you get a good grade in class.