The novelist Henry James once said, “Tell a dream and lose a reader.” Perhaps he’d have sold more books if he’d ignored his own advice, to judge from the success of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol and Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories. And think of the impact Martin Luther King made with I had a dream …
For what it’s worth, then, here’s one I dreamed last night. I was taking a class of Year 8 youngsters on a country ramble – something I used to do in reality when the school where I taught had an outward-bound centre in the Peak District. There’s nothing like a long walk for getting to know the kids in your tutor set and my dream was completely faithful to life in that respect.
We end up on a railway station platform. It’s dusk and the lights are coming on – ornate, old-fashioned Victorian lamps – while trains with brightly-lit carriages lumber slowly past us on either side in both directions. I ask the class to get into groups of 3,4 or 5. They disperse into waiting rooms and other nooks and crannies. I go in search and find they’re all in groups apart from 3 kids – 2 who want to work together and 1 nobody else wants. After some gentle diplomacy, I fit these into other groups and bring the class together to explain the task – not easy above the racket of trains and station announcements.
I’m just getting going when something bumps me sharply from the side and an eccentric figure runs past in Dickensian gear – top hat, cream-coloured coat and long leather boots. Just before disappearing round the corner of a station building, coat-tails flapping like the White Rabbit, he turns to me with a mischievous look and I see a face that resembles Robin Williams …
I’m awake. My wife has nudged me in the ribs. It’s 3.33 am. The cat is scratching at the bedroom door. I stumble downstairs to the kitchen and point the sleepy animal at the dried food still in his bowl. I go into the lounge and scribble down the main points of my dream.
Back in bed I lie awake, words of explanation to my dream class forming effortlessly in my mind. Turns out I want them to come up with creative responses to school life – they’re already experts on that subject, with more than 100 years of experience between them – working together to fashion poems, improvised drama, scripts, stories, letters, cartoons, research projects, you name it … and I fall asleep practising my speech in the hope that we are just about to meet up again.
There are many things I could say about dreams (and just as many about teaching) but I am curious to know what other people think. Do you have any observations to make? I would be very interested to read them.
a nomad in cyberspace 
It sounds a great dream to me, certainly better than the ones I have. I’m sorry I am unable to offer any sort of explanation. Perhaps, seeing the Robin Williams face is a sign that the dream is all a little tongue in cheek. That’s the best I can come up with.
LikeLike
My interpretation is that you have a strong desire to teach lots of kids. Robin Williams as a mad hatter sounds about right. Victoria trains have associations with Jack the Ripper, Ghost Stories and ghastly murders. You weren’t after murdering the kids you taught were you?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cheers, Trev! I don’t remember many dreams but this was so vivid that it seemed significant. You could be right about the Robin Williams bit – the character was obviously an add-on to explain my wife’s real-life nudge. Perhaps there’s a secret director at work, after all … And, Opher, you’re spot on that I miss teaching! It was a love-hate relationship, of course, which might account for some of the sinister elements. Perhaps there’s a tension here between trusting kids to control their own learning and fearing that they will become distracted … significant, perhaps, that my lesson explanation only came when I was awake. I think we put more trust in kids’ innate ability to learn in the old days. Maybe the trains signify new, more pressing timetables … and as for Robin Williams, I always think of him as the inspirational teacher in Dead Poets’ Society. Hmm, more questions than answers but thanks for your input, guys!
LikeLike
Less cheese at night will help with that dreaming, or if they are all this good more cheese at night, I can never remember dreams I am jealous of those who can.
LikeLike
Cheese, Neil … er, sorry, cheers! Can’t remember them myself, usually, and wonder if people who often talk about their dreams are tempted to embellish or even make them up. I probably only remembered this one because I woke up in the middle of it.
LikeLike