A Bad Dream

It's probably going a bit too far to say that the dream I had this morning was a bad dream. It wouldn't rate highly as a nightmare, but it was unpleasant, to say the least, involving feelings of annoyance, irritation and anxiety I'd rather do without. I woke up from the dream, I'm happy to say, at 8.50 am and was immediately able to push those negative feelings to one side, though whatever relief I felt that it had all been just a dream was tempered by the fact I'd had the dream at all.

The odd thing about it all was that what happened in the dream was so contrary to the reality of my lived experience for many years now that I felt, and feel now, puzzled as to how some part of my brain conjured up an entirely false narrative. The dream featured a show I was directing, some three or four hours before actual performance. The cast for the most part were all there, and obviously prepared, but not the four 'leads'. I gave a little speech explaining the desperately important final rehearsing necessary, noting that with the key people being missing we were unlikely to be able to deliver a good show. Then I settled down to wait for the four absentees, somehow knowing that I was going to be let down. One arrived, and I knew immediately he was weak on a key speech. Then I woke up.

Now I'm used to anxiety dreams about shows in which I am the one who's underprepared and doesn't know what's going on. But I can't recall ever having the kind of dream in which the performers themselves have let me down. And one very good reason I can immediately think of for this lack is that in reality this just doesn't happen. Indeed, in recent years I've been spectacularly blessed by the manner in which performers have somehow delivered despite the many pressures upon them, especially the pressures attendant upon time leaking away. Possibly the dream was a warning against taking all this for granted? But I prefer to think it was a way of reminding myself of the incredible good fortune I enjoy of working in the circumstances I do with the people who share those circumstances.

I think back now to 26 July and wonder, Just how did we do all that?, a question I find myself happily asking every year around this time.