MP: Always Crashing in That Same Plane

When people talk about their dreams in their blogs, most of the time I roll my eyes and look away. I mean how much more solipsistic can you get than to think that anyone would be interested in reading about the ways your unconscious brain processes the dross of life? But every now and again dreams seem meaningful enough that you have to talk about them.

My dreams are almost always cinematic and narrative, and I have a handful of recurring themes in addition to my more usual and varied fare. This was another of my crashing airplane dreams, but this one represented an interesting evolution on the concept. Used to be, I'd dream about being helpless in a crash. Then I got to where I'd dream about being a passenger in the plane crashing, but at the last crucial second, I'd find myself outside the plane, watching it crash from a distance. ( Today, I was piloting the plane. From a passenger seat. )

The thing I'm struck with here is agency. If these crashing plane dreams are some kind of metaphor for anxiety and feeling out of control, then wow this is a huge change. It's still a complex piece of broken machinery that I don't know how to control, but there are guides (the other pilots) who believe I can do it. There are people (the passengers and people on the ground) who my actions can affect. People I can save. And there is a heroic core of me that doesn't flee the crashing plane, but takes on the terrible responsibility and makes an effort to salvage the situation, to avert impending disaster.

Almost makes me feel proud of myself.