My dreams are not frightening,
they are not nightmares. But
their irrationality puzzles
me. What is Hermes trying to
tell me? Is he playing a game
with me? Last Monday night
I dreamt about a school for
young children who had heads
but no bodies. Last night it
was a cow that was galloping
in our meadow like a horse.
Another night, and this one
was a bit scary, I swam across
the lake with my head under
water, I didn’t have to breathe air.
What is the message of these
dreams? Into what kind of world
is Hermes leading me? It’s not
the world described daily in the
New York Times.A world of
shadows? A kind of levitation?
How can I pray to Hermes to lay
off these senseless fantasies,
tell him that I want real dreams
such as my shrink can explicate.
I’ve looked up lustration in
the dictionary. Its definition
is not encouraging: “a prefatory
ceremony, performed as a preliminary
to entering a holy place.” That’s
too impersonal. I want a man-to-man
talk with Hermes, telling him to
stop infesting my nights with