Last week I dreamed I was in first grade again. In the dream, however, I was no longer a child. Instead, I was returning to first grade as a 60-year-old.
First grade was different this time around, and not because I was five decades older than my peers — the age difference was, to my dream self, unremarkable. What was different was that there were ads. I don’t recall where exactly the ads showed up — if they were projected onto the walls or slipped deviously into the alphabet lineup tacked over the chalkboard, but you couldn’t miss them.
“A first-grade class is no place for ads,” I thought. And then I thought, “Wow, I am really smart for first grade.”
The next night I dreamed I was a television news anchor. My first night on the job, I smeared the entire surface of my face with a slick, lemon-colored lipstick that imparted an eerie glow to my skin. But just as being a 60-year-old in first grade wasn’t problematic, neither was delivering the news to an edgy America with a radioactive yellow glow emanating from my face. No, the real problem, as I saw it, was that I’d forgotten to put on eyeliner.
(READ MORE: Scholars tell the difference between dreams and fantasies)