Unspoken Truths

Have you ever discovered an unspoken truth? One of those things that everyone knows but nobody wants to admit? I don't have a wealth of examples here, but I can tell you about one that I discovered this weekend.

I was sitting on our deck with my wife and kids, just hanging out. My wife brought up that she had had a strange dream, which she proceeded to relay to us. Then my daughter also said she had had a weird dream. But, as I listened to her re-telling of the dream, my mind began to wander. I was looking at the clouds. Then the gutters on the house, thinking about the wasp nest that was under the ending of the gutter. By that time, I was totally out of her story. I'm a very bad Father, yes, I know this.

But this brings me to the hidden truth. I said to all of them, "I have to say something here. I believe there's a hidden, universal truth that applies to everyone, although nobody wants to admit it, and it is this: Every person alive is far more interested in telling other people about their dreams than they are to hear about other people's dreams." This got quite a good reaction from my wife, who then admitted she had also let her mind wander when our daughter was telling us about her dream, despite my wife having just shared her own. We laughed a bit about this, and I really think this is true.

Granted, you could say this is true about other things, not just sharing dreams. I suspect most people would rather tell a story from their childhood than to listen to someone else's. But, I'd bet that with dreams it is a matter of greater degree. Let's face it,,,dreams can be totally whacked out and plain old stupid when you hear someone else telling them. "Then, my friend, who had been standing there, was suddenly my uncle Jim, and he was wearing my old track suit..." That kind of strange. And...disinteresting.

When we dream, there is some magical context that makes it all seem plausible. But others never get that context when we re-tell the dream. They may try to reconstruct the events of the dream in their own mind, but they are missing that magical dreaminess that made it all seem to make sense...almost.

So, let me go on record here in this blog space as saying I really don't want to hear about your dreams. Please. But if you want to hear all about the one where I was riding my bike along the top of a castle wall, I'll be happy to share ;0)

PS - Thanks for reading my blog...although chances are you'd rather have me reading your own.