You know those dreams where you finally meet the person you’re supposed to be with? Everything feels right, like that cheesy line that’s in way too many movies but gets me every time: You feel like home. Finally you just know with every cell in your body that this person fits, that they see you and get you. They want you. And then, true to dream rules, suddenly you’re hanging with your 8th grade science teacher helping him upload pictures of prehistoric fish to his online dating profile. You wake up and try to get back to the good part and finally settle for spooning your pillow. Tragic.
I dreamt once that I was walking around an abandoned farm yard (BTW, I might actually play that terrible FarmVille game on Face Book if you could find a soulmate in your garden instead of vermin) when suddenly there he was. It’s amazing how blurry and confusing the landscape can seem in the unconscious, yet how incredibly vivid and clear your feelings become; the exact opposite of reality. I didn’t know why we were both in this misty barn, or even who he was, but without speaking there was this great, warm flood of relief through my body. We had found each other. That thing people call love – which most days I think is a romantic way of saying, “avoiding loneliness,” or, “let’s bone but make it sound sweeter,” – suddenly I had this arcane glimpse of a feeling I am certain I’ve never felt in real life.
We spent the day in muzzy dream time, taking each other in. The weird thing about these dreams is I can never really get a good look at the guy except to note that he looks a little like me. So is it a pathetic fantasy of mine to finally love myself or am I just a raging narcissist? Either way, in this moment I was just happy. We leaned forward to kiss and I could barely catch my breath for being so excited. I closed my eyes and our lips met and something was not right. I opened my eyes and he had turned into a cow. Yep, a shaggy, spotted cow who was now standing in front of me, unaware that he was a cow, thinking he was a boy, gazing at me with giant love-struck cow eyes. In a movie I would have been holding a glass and it would have fallen, slow motion, from my hand and shattered like the dream suddenly had. Instead I took a step back and he took one forward, confused. I wanted to cry – I still loved him but he wasn’t what I had thought. He didn’t understand that he wasn’t a boy anymore and as I panicked and started to run he followed me. Have you ever seen a cow run? It’s not incredibly graceful or anything but given reason, heifers can book. I ran as fast as I could, still tasting cow lips and terrified this bovine was going to trample me – or worse – in a barnyard crime of passion.
I woke up right before my dream went bestiality on me but immediately was filled with such sadness I almost wished it had. (Almost being the operative word.) It was just so horribly similar to that feeling in life when you get so excited about someone only to suddenly see them revealed as a cow — not a cow, but as not who you thought they were. Maybe that was the problem. I only wanted the dreamy version, not the vulnerable or the ugly. It was in fact right when things got intimate that my true love pulled a reverse frog prince. If I had kissed him again in all his milky horror would he have transformed back into a boy? Or would my heart have gotten trampled? My best friend’s dad interprets dreams this way: Everyone in your dream is actually you. If that’s true than I’m the cow. I’m the one who becomes unloveable and different right when things are about to get intense. It’s just easier that way. Disappear or transfigure when things get tough and then if you get rejected, well it wasn’t really you. By the way, you’re welcome: I’ve just found the deeper meaning behind the lyrics, “I am the walrus.” Oh, Yoko, you still loved him, tusks and all.
Photo via elrina753
