The dream world can be an amazing, lovely place to spend some time.   But it has its drawbacks.   Some of the following is obvious, some not so much, at least to me…

The Part Of My Brain That Can Read. I am completely illiterate in my dreams.   Whenever I come across a book or sign or anything I need to read, I just can’t.   I can see the text, I just can’t make sense of it.     This is interesting in a somewhat disturbing way: in real life I am a voracious reader, but I’ve read that others experience this same effect in dreams.   I assume it’s because that part of your brain is…well…sleeping.   Sometimes, but very very seldomly, I remember the text well enough that when I wake up I can then read it.   And as you would expect, it’s pretty odd, random and meaningless.   Like the title to the book I found on a pile of trash in a bookstore that I was so frustrated I could not read the frustration woke me up and I remembered it and it was “Old Book”

The Part Of My Brain That Sees Color. This is also something I’ve read that others experience.   My dreams are almost exclusively in black & white, though lately I’ve experienced the occasional color moment.

Light Switches. Lately in my dreams, whenever I find myself entering a dark room or house and I try to turn on the lights, nothing works.   This is usually a prelude to the dream going bad on me, but sometimes it’s just frustrating. I’m writing this post just now because last night it happened again…I was walking into a house to find something, and it was dark inside and I tried various light switches and nothing would come on, and I remember in my dream getting really irritated that I was having “that damn light problem” again so I pulled open some window shades and let light in that way.   At least the sun still works in my dreams.

Bullets. While being pursued by thugs or monsters in my dreams, reliably when I reach for a gun the gun works just fine but the bullets have no effect.   I don’t get the click, click, it’s EMPTY, effect other friends of mine do.   My gun is loaded and I can shoot just fine, but nothing I hit seems to care.   It’s gotten to the point now that I usually just start beating the damn things over the head with the gun rather than bothering to pull the trigger.

Toilets. This is usually my dream telling me that I need to wake up and go to the bathroom.   When in a dream I get the urge to go, and I start looking around for a bathroom, inevitably in every bathroom I check the toilet is missing.   The hole in the floor where it connects is there alright, but the toilet is gone.

Automobiles. This isn’t something that does not work, so much as one very odd thing I almost never do in my dreams, that I would expect after having lived to the threshold of old age to have done at least once.   In real life I absolutely love driving.   In my dreams I am nearly always walking.   Which is also something I like doing, don’t get me wrong. When the weather is nice I am always out for a walk, and I bought my house where I did specifically so I would be close enough to work I would walk it.   I grew up in a household without a car, so maybe this is part of it.   But I have owned a car since I was old enough to drive and I love to drive too and it’s just odd that in my dreams I never seem to even think to drive anywhere.   And what is more, there are almost never any cars in my dreams, even parked nearby.   Trains yes.   Lots of trains for some odd reason.   Train tracks and trains show up in the strangest places in my dreams.   But the one and only time I can remember ever dreaming about driving somewhere, it was This Horrible Dream that still creeps me out.