STRANGER THAN FICTION: FREUD REINCARNATED: HEIDI SHEDS LIGHT ON DREAMS

My parents had a subscription to Reader's Digest about five years ago. Their home still features ancient issues in a bathroom magazine rack.

I was flipping through a few of them the other day and ran across an article about common dreams and their meanings.

It talked about the endless-stairs dream, and said it meant that the dreamer felt he wasn't going anywhere in life. It described the gee-whiz-I'm-flying dream and said it meant the dreamer was sailing happily through life, unless he crashed, of course.

And it described the going-to-school-nude dream just about everyone has had. "Reader's Digest" said it meant the dreamer felt exposed and vulnerable.

When I was in school, I had the going-to-school-nude dream. Now it's the going-to-work-nude dream. I'm usually buck naked, but sometimes I have underwear on. People either walk by, not even noticing I'm naked, or they come up and talk to me as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

That's better than dreaming people run from me in fear and shock, like Japanese train commuters who sighted an approaching Godzilla monster.

Apparently, dreams are extremely important. To diagnose and treat various neuroses, Dr. Sigmund Freud interpreted his patients' dreams, which he believed contained the clues to unconscious feelings -- at least that's what the Encyclopedia Britannica says. Of course, Freud was a drug-using lunatic who thought people subconsciously wanted to make whoopie at age 3.

So, for the sake of argument, let's say any one of us could interpret dreams as well as he could. I recently performed a scientific study of my friends' dreams and came up with a few diagnoses of my own.

PATRICK: "I owned this Italian restaurant in a really bad neighborhood, but Dan Marino came in there to eat anyway. I was so happy he was there.

"Then all these crooks kept coming in and trying to hustle my money. Every time I got rid of one, another would come in. Finally, Dan Marino got up and left without paying."

Diagnosis: Linguine paranoia.

WILLIAM: "I'm walking in the downtown of a big city and bump into this woman I haven't seen in years. We decide to have dinner, and, while sitting at the table, we decide some sort of cosmic force brought us together.

"When I wake up, I'm really sorry to realize she wasn't real."

Diagnosis: Needs to get out more.

BRENDA: "I'm on the "X-Files" with Mulder and Scully, and we're climbing up these stairs with ghosts at the top.

"I keep screaming because I don't want to go up there, but I don't want to lose face in front of Mulder and Scully."

Diagnosis: Too much Fox television.

Now that I've dogged my friends, who have great senses of humor, I hope, it's only fair that I reveal a dream of my own.

I'm in this secluded log cabin with Brad Pitt, explaining to him how I can't believe fate has brought us together like this. I tell him how I fell in love with him during "Interview with the Vampire," but even his character Early in "Kalifornia" didn't really repulse me.

Suddenly, there's a knock at the door. I tell him not to answer it, but he gets up anyway. It's an elderly man with a plunger, who says his toilet is clogged up and he needs Brad's help.

Brad leaves me alone with our working toilet.

You figure it out.

~Heidi Nieland is a member of the Southeast Missourian news staff writer.