Eyes Wide Shut

The Dream Business, by that I mean the interpretation of dreams is just that, business and big business at that. I do not wish to belittle those who read great meaning into their own dreams.

There are many normally quite spiritual, logical, rational and sensible folk who seek comfort, solace and an explanation from those who would offer such a role.

I do not dream very often. When I do it tends to be quite a rip-roaring and rollicking epic covering many continents, involving quite complex scenarios and a few characters from history and movies but without fail the dream always ends with me, naked and being pursued by a driverless Morris Minor convertible.

I am sure that would provide a Psycho-Analyst with a good steady income over many months with me on the consulting room couch.

My own interpretation is that it is my sub conscious reminding me that I did not tighten up the wheel nuts on my Father's Convertible Moggie after doing a wheel change for a Cub Scout badge. It was only whilst out later that same day on a family road trip that a quite violent wobbling of said wheel gave an inkling of my negligence. The thought of what may have befallen my family has haunted my sleeping hours ever since.

"The Dream Dictionary, 10,000 dreams interpreted" by Gustavus Hindman Miller and published in 1909 remains perhaps one of the most widely published reference books on the subject. It is a thick and weighty book to be found in paperback on many Charity Shop shelves, at church jumble sales and at many a car boot event. Many of the entries and subsequent interpretations are antiquated, quite cute and not a little bit amusing.

Take the matter of a dream involving a Donkey

Donkey To dream of a donkey braying in your face, denotes that you are about to be publicly insulted by a lewd and unscrupulous person. 

To hear the distant braying filling space with melancholy, you will receive wealth and release from unpleasant bonds by the death of some person close to you. 

If you see yourself riding on a donkey, you will visit foreign lands and make many explorations into places difficult of passage. To see others riding donkeys, denotes a meagre inheritance for them and a toiling life. To dream of seeing many of the old patriarchs traveling on donkeys, shows that the influence of Christians will be thrown against you in your selfish wantonness, causing you to ponder over the rights and duties of man to man. 

To drive a donkey, signifies that all your energies and pluck will be brought into play against a desperate effort on the part of enemies to overthrow you. 

If you are in love, evil women will cause you trouble. If you are kicked by this little animal, it shows that you are carrying on illicit connections, from which you will suffer much anxiety from fear of betrayal. If you lead one by a halter, you will be master of every situation, and lead women into your way of seeing things by flattery. 

To see children riding and driving donkeys, signifies health and obedience for them. 

To fall or be thrown from one, denotes ill luck and disappointment in secular affairs. Lovers will quarrel and separate. 

To see one dead, denotes satiated appetites, resulting from licentious excesses. 

To dream of drinking the milk of a donkey, denotes that whimsical desires will be gratified, even to the displacement of important duties. If you see in your dreams a strange donkey among your stock, or on your premises, you will inherit some valuable effects. 

 To dream of coming into the possession of a donkey by present, or buying, you will attain to enviable heights in the business or social world, and if single, will contract a congenial marriage. 

To dream of a white donkey, denotes an assured and lasting fortune, which will enable you to pursue the pleasures or studies that lie nearest your heart. For a woman, it signals entrance into that society for which she has long entertained the most ardent desire. Woman has in her composition those qualities, docility and stubbornness, which tallies with the same qualities in the donkey; both being supplied from the same storehouse, mother Nature; and consequently, they would naturally maintain an affinity, and the ugliest phase of the donkey in her dreams are nothing but woman's nature being sounded for her warning, or _vice versa_ when pleasure is just before her.

......and so to bed, perchance to dream .....but hopefully not about donkey things