the stuff of dreams - training crocodiles with Heath Ledger

I read somewhere a long time ago that trying to remember ones dreams in the first few minutes after waking improves ones memory. Whether they still think so, or whether that has any truth in it aside, I am lying in bed after just having woken up trying to remember this dream.

Ok, so I was not exactly training crocodiles with Heath Ledger. There was definitely some crocodile training going on. Only, I was a mere spectator. The crocs were gathered at a big and deep pool and were being trained to do various moves. At some point I was stood at the edge of the deep end of the pool looking down into it. There was a wall at the very edge about waist height where I was standing. The water's surface was however much lower down on the other side. And it was a very deep pool. I could make out the shape of a BIG black croc at the bottom. It was in one of those things which they used to move whales and was supposed to be flipping itself lengthwise within that confined space. The trainers had managed to convey to the croc what it was supposed to be doing. I guess the croc understood English because at some point the trainer was shouting instructions at it in English. At some point, she told it to pull its belly in! Hmm... no comment!

After watching for a while, I moved on. Somehow I ended up in another pool. I was in the water at the edge. My husband was in the pool beside me while Heath Ledger was lying on his stomach at the edge talking to me. He was looking like how he looked in Ten Things I Hate About You. We were also part of some team and had just finished some sort of training, but I do not remember what it was about. I remember feeling the camaraderie with him that you get from being part of a same team. My husband was not part of the team though. He was just there to hang out with us.

There was a moment and he (Heath Ledger) leaned down and almost kissed me. I brushed him aside and said something like "come on, don't be like that". And the whole time my husband was just barely three feet away, watching although he did not actually say anything. 

Afterwards (still in the dream), I found myself wishing that I had kissed him. I remember asking myself if it counts as cheating if it was somebody famous. I reiterate that all this was in the dream, and has therefore do not represent my views may be while awake and conscious. So anyway, I went on to wonder if it counts as cheating if my husband was right there and did not say anything. And now comes the most surreal part of all. While I was thinking all this in the dream, I remembered that Heath Ledger is actually dead! And my first thought after "wow, this is so surreal!" was "well then, it doesn't count as cheating because he is already dead!". So instead of being freaked out about almost having kissed a dead person, I just wished even more that I had kissed him instead.

Then I woke up.

Having woken up, I have been wondering about two things in particular.

Firstly, it all comes back to me wondering about what dreams are. What is it that makes us dream the things we dream? With this dream in particular, I do not see how the theory that our dreams are a result of our brain processing and cataloguing the information and images accumulated from the day. The pool part is easy. I have missed my weekly swim so many times now that it is becoming more like a monthly swim. And I have been actively missing it, as in I miss it and really wish that I could find some time just to jump into the pool again soon. But Heath Ledger and crocodiles? I do not really recall having seen or heard anything about either during the day. Although perhaps it is just something that my eyes rested on for the briefest of seconds, or something was said within my earshot which I was not paying attention to. Perhaps it was my subconscious which registered the information, not the conscious mind. Which makes me think of the film "Limitless" and what we could be capable of if we could somehow access everything that our eyes and ears have subconsciously registered.

The second thing I wonder about is harder to put into words. It has to do with my response upon realising that Heath Ledger is dead. There was clearly a distortion of my sense of what is right, not just in terms of moral correctness, but also in conformity with fact, reason and truth. So I am just wondering what, if anything, that goes to show. Does it indicate, as we are told, that our conscience, our sense of right and wrong, the Super-ego or whatever you choose to call it, is in fact a congintive function, and therefore, does not reside in the subconscious, wherever it is that the subconscious may lie? But it is also possible to feel guilty in a dream? So is it perhaps an indication of the dominance of the Id over the Super-ego in this particular brain at this particular time? Or it is in fact just an indication of a warped mind?! Or perhaps it is really just a random, weird, surreal dream and no further thought should be given to it!

*photo of Heath Ledger taken from flixter