Listening to the radio while driving down the road recently I heard the 1950s Johnny Tillotson recording “Send Me the Pillow You Dream On.” The song has been covered by many other recording artists over the years.

The recording jump-started some semi-deep thoughts on the matter of dreams.

While science can explain why we dream and psychologists can help us understand what we dream, the subject of dreams is still filled with mystery.

I have always had a weird dream life.

One of the earliest dreams I can remember was actually a nightmare. The dream occurred when I was about 3 years old and I dreamt that the boogeyman came out of the attic door in our home’s second story. I have no idea how I knew he was the boogeyman but I do know that he was wearing a flat cap (a la 1930s) like my Uncle Hank always wore. That was a strange connection because in real life Uncle Hank was a fun and generous guy.

During pre-adolescence I regularly experienced terrifying nightmares. I woke-up screaming and my mother came running to comfortingly talk me back to sleep. With one exception, I cannot recall any real-life connections to these nightmares.

Years later my son experienced similar dreams in middle childhood. When he was in college he wrote a psychology class paper on “night terrors” which are similar to nightmares but more terrifying. He did not fall asleep again as quickly as I did but he did outgrow the night terrors by the time he was a teenager.

For many years in adulthood I had a recurring dream that I determined was related to stress. My first non-farm job was at the local radio station and learning to operate the control board had a very sharp and stressful learning curve.

When something stressful was taking place in my life I often dreamt I was back at that radio station having problems making the control board and related operations go smoothly.

I regularly attend a noon luncheon with a bunch of retired/former radio and television people. We call our group “Microphonies.” Table conversations have revealed that others from the profession have had similar dreams.

Fast forward to current times and I still have vivid dreams, some of which I can still remember a few days later.

Most recently I dreamt that I was at my current age and attending church with my parents. Strangely, the setting was that of the church we attended in northern Iowa more than 70 years ago when I was a small boy. I recall looking around at the congregation thinking I recognized people who, in reality, passed away years ago.

My parents are both deceased and it was comforting to see them both young and in good health again.

But wait, there’s more. When the service was over and we walked to the parking lot I presented my father with a totally restored 1953 Ford he bought new 71 years ago. Apparently I was responsible for the restoration and I have to say I did a good job.

Where did all that come from? Someone who can understand dreams would have fun trying to interpret that one!

Some dreams take me back 40-some years ago to the time I worked at the Sioux City Journal. In those dreams the setting — the offices and circumstances — are the same as reality but the people in the dream generally are not. In some of those dreams I am struggling with achieving our sales budget so I can call these stress dreams as well.

Then there are the dreams where I am in some sort of trouble and happy when I wake up and realize it was just a dream.

Most of my dreams involve pieces of the past; no predictions of the future. As the oldest of six, family dreams usually have me as an adult and my siblings at some stage of their youth. We used to argue and fight as kids but in my dreams we all get along.

You know, it’s not fair. In Bible times, people had dreams that were messages from God. I get psychologically challenging technicolor programs that obviously have network problems.

Recently, I had a disturbingly long dream in which I was making a salad. I was tossing all night!

Arvid Huisman can be contacted at huismaniowa@gmail.com. ©2024 by Huisman Communications.