No sense at all

I woke this morning with a fierce desire to talk through the dream I’d just emerged from. Now, one of the things I like most about my husband is that he doesn’t feel the need to share his dreams. Or, rather he has always abided by my rule that we don’t, on any pretext, share dreams. So this morning I kept to the rules and said nothing.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t wish my own night-time ramblings on anybody, least of all the person I wake up next to. Other people’s dreams, even your partner’s, have little narrative interest. No beginnings, no middles, no ends – and therefore no point. And a narrative arc is surely something we look for in most things, with even the most mundane of days providing us with an arc of sorts: an unsteady beginning, the regular staging posts of breakfast, lunch and dinner, the gradual descent towards the night.

Besides, with my discovery of The West Wing a couple of years ago, I’ve come to realise that the perfect way to bring my own daily arc to a close is escaping into someone else’s well-wrought narrative (I’m a little late in coming to this, I know). But ever since I watched my way to the end of the series – five or so years late and drip-fed by DVD – I’ve been hankering for something to fill that post-dinner, post-chores slot. I’ve tried alternatives, but so far nothing has quite provided what I need (and I found The Wire almost impossible to follow).

So my own narrative arc is slightly lacking right now. Which makes it, I think, even more important that I don’t muddy that crucial (and already unsteady) start to the day by airing my dreams, however urgent they might seem. In the dead of the night, such delusions might hold my attention, but in the light of day they would, I’m sure, make no sense at all.