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Just Another Week (Of Weird Bridge Dreams)

When a subject is part of your everyday life, it tends to make its way into your dreams. It’s the way the mind constructs what dreams are. It can be unpredictable, it can be pretty weird, and it can tell you either something or nothing about what you were thinking that day.

The “Tetris-effect” is a good illustration of what happens when a topic forces its way in. Have you ever spent so much time playing anything that you’d start dreaming about it? Well, that’s the effect at work.

I’ve had it with video poker, Pac-Man, Tetris, and more recently, the game of bridge.

I’ve also had about a week’s stretch where I have had several odd dreams featuring Ely Culbertson.

What the hell?

It started several months ago. Culbertson was just there, stuck as some background character in a video game.

It seemed like the most natural thing at the time. “Oh, hi. Him.”

I might have mentioned the dream in this very column when it happened.

And now, some time later, Culbertson seems to be back. (I haven’t established if I’m dreaming of Culbertson, or Culbertson’s ghost. Will report back.)

The dreams have gotten far more elaborate with time, for some reason.

In the usual tradition of stuff that makes no sense outside of dreams, it feels like the continuation of a single dream rather than separate events.

From several dreams, I’ve been able to gather:

  • The dreams are taking place in his timeline, and not mine.
  • There’s a train to catch, but I’m not sure where to.
  • A huge bridge tournament is going on, somewhere, and I assume that’s where the train is headed.
  • Culbertson goes periodically missing, only to appear again later, like a wayward Jimi Hendrix pawning his guitar before a gig.
  • He has a hat, and seemingly always. (He also has a suit. Gray-and-stripes, if you were wondering.)
  • Posters in the background of the dream advertise Culbertson.
  • He happens to be carrying the Blue Book, in handwritten manuscript form. (Periodically, this appears and reappears with Culbertson throughout several dreams.)

I’m not sure what it all means.

I’m not even sure it means anything.

But if the dream continues from here, I’d better prepare for one hell of a bridge tournament in my sleep pretty soon.