Article July 18, 1988 Issue

When things are too bad to be true

If we are caught up in a troubling dream, what's the best solution? To make the dream better? Or to wake up?

William Welsh Holland

Not long ago I had a dream that drove home the need for a more radical approach to problem-solving. I dreamed that I was in college again and that I'd just learned there was a big examination the following day. The problem was, I had no recollection of ever having attended this course, much less signed up for it. Panic set in. And along with it a nagging inner debate: Had I signed up or hadn't I?

Suddenly a doubt intruded that not only this situation but the entire context within which it had arisen was a mistake. It occurred to me that I wasn't in college in the first place. If that was true, I reasoned, then this must be a dream. And if this was a dream, then I could choose to wake up from it. Though I was strangely reluctant to exercise that option, eventually I did just that. I woke up.

Had I stayed asleep, I might somehow have got permission to avoid taking the imaginary exam. The fear might have subsided, and I could have gone on, still dreaming I was in college. But the only real solution required attending to something more than what appeared to be the specific trouble. It demanded recognizing the fallacy of the entire context within which that trouble arose. The dream state itself had to go.

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