Lev Raphael

NONFICTION

Are We Made of Dreams?

It was a typical gray Michigan mid-October day, and that night my dream was anything but colorless:

I’m rushing around sky blue hospital corridors and there aren’t any windows or a seat for me. Everyone is saving a seat for someone else, either by spreading a jacket across it, an arm across the back, or piling up with knapsacks and messenger bags. Nobody smiles.

And then I’m down in the crowded lobby, and there’s some light behind me so there must finally be a window, right? I’m sitting, no longer anxious, and not far off there’s a tall man with his back to me who’s in conversation with someone I can’t see. This other man reverently says, “Lord!,” and the man with his back to me moves slowly to the exit. He’s solid and tall, with glowing, long red hair.

I know exactly who he is, and I’m thrilled. He turns, holds a long finger to his lips, and his kind, strong eyes ask me not to make a fuss. When he leaves, the glow I feel in the dream is so incandescent that it wakes me up: That was Jesus! I think, grinning. He was in my dream.

But why? I’m Jewish.

The next night I dream I’m in one of those brightly colored trams somewhere in Germany listening carefully for the announcement of die nächste Straßenbahnhaltestelle, the next stop, because though my German is good, I sometimes mishear announcements over loudspeakers.

There’s no scenery of note as we rumble along, and I’m minding my own business when suddenly Daniel Craig is in the seat opposite me, smiling, wearing a sky blue cable-stitch crewneck sweater that matches his eyes. And he glows the way he did in Casino Royale.

Startled, I ask him “Aber was machen Sie denn da?” What on earth are you doing here?

His smile deepens, crinkling those traffic-stopping eyes, and I wake up.

My German teacher is impressed the next day when I tell her about the tram. It’s my first-ever dream in that language, which she says means that I’m starting to think in German, a sure sign of major progress. Plus she’s a fan of Craig’s James Bond movies and pretends to be annoyed at him having joined me in a dream and never visiting her.

Without knowing about the Jesus dream, she says, “So interesting that you dreamt of a bond, no? What do you think it means?”

Nights pass as I wait for an answer.

Lev Raphael is a first-generation American who has been writing stories since second grade and is living his childhood dream of being an author. He escaped academia many years ago to write full-time and has reviewed books for the Washington Post and the Detroit Free Press.

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Image: Der Traum Des Heiligen Joseph, Antonio Ciseri, Public Domain.