BY JOELLEN COLLINS
In analyzing the sometimes subtle effects of the COVID-19 virus, experts have noted an increase in nightmares among citizens who normally don’t claim to dream much. I have always had vivid dreams, many bizarre, which provide me with endless analyses of my subconsciousness.
I will not bore you here with the nature of my nighttime fantasies, as relating dreams is usually a fruitless experience and often boring to the listener. However, I had an especially odd nightmare early on in my quarantine weeks, and I keep recalling it with the events of this pandemic.
I dreamt I was writing and sending too many messages on my laptop, when the computer started to turn red and swell up to a triple-sized, untouchable oddity. Then I noticed that I, too, was beginning to turn red and swell. I screamed “It’s radioactive!” as I awoke into, thank God, only a remembered vision.
I am often disturbed by the lack of connection that dominates many of my nightmares, but this one has stayed with me, as an older woman who is not a “techie.” Even though I never learned to type, I have slowly been able to employ many of the skills necessary in today’s world to wade through the current information and communications skills adequately, especially if I ask my grandchildren for help.
And while I bewail the lack of human touch and personal time with others, and the plethora of talking through phones instead of in person, I realize that this pandemic has, at least, occurred in the time of an obvious abundance of connections available through social websites, Zoom and many avenues we are discovering. I understand that I must adjust more fully to the availability of sources on the Internet.
In looking back on that nightmare, I reflect on two interpretations: one is the excessive and bloated time I spend on the ever-growing sources from my computer, almost like a huge atomic bomb fraught with devastation, an overload sometimes almost poisonous. If I compare that with my library card, real letters, newspapers, magazines, books and radio, the sources available when I grew up, I can despair. Go through a typical daily Facebook record and try to avoid nasty and hateful views by some with whom you would hope to maintain a positive relationship.
And how does that “radiation” lead to my fear of the future and a glut of sadness within me? I don’t know, but I am working on it. The second interpretation is more positive: I am trying to accept the new realities of my life without gorging on the fear and negativity.
Obviously, this overdose of data will be a new feature of our world, with good and bad results as we access the omnipresent and omnipotent flow of truth and fiction. I did awaken before the imagined result of my bad dream. Maybe there would have been a happy ending filled with ready access to other peoples and ideas that will strengthen us all.
