Tandem to Camden

Onto our sixth dreamer and our second dream about bikes and bridges. It’s not our first dream from a Philadelphian, though Lindsay is the first of the 31 Dreamers to submit a dream actually dreamt in Philadelphia. Lindsay writes:

I was riding on a tandem bicycle with another person (don't remember who). We were riding onto a tall, narrow bridge. The bike jumped into the air and I realized we weren't going to land on the bridge. I said, “flap your arms!” to try to keep us out of the water below. In spite of the flapping we fell into the river, near to the bank. A boat passed by—it was a tour boat or something like that, large with a lot of people on it. I treaded water and waved at them and yelled, trying to get them to stop and pick us up, but they just waved back, like I was just saying hi. My boyfriend shook me awake, saying I had started to yell "help" really loud in my sleep.

Bridges and bikes go together in dreams like toilets and alligators in the awake world. In a dream a bike is some sort of journey, a bridge is a transition along that journey. By “journey” I don’t necessarily mean an actual voyage that takes you from geographical point A to geographical point B, but any process by which we move through the world, be it real space or time, a particular project, career, relationship, or life in general. A tall, narrow bridge on that journey shows fear in the precariousness of the transition, though not always fear of what’s on the other side. I’m speaking somewhat generally here. Mainly, I see two fundamental ways to read this dream, based on a single factor:

Are you on the back of the tandem bicycle?

Or are you on the front of the tandem bicycle?

I’m guessing that you are riding in front, because if you were on the back and telling the person in front to flap their arms, then they would have to let go of the handlebars and lose control of the bicycle. Though if a bicycle is falling through the air, what good are handlebars anyway? You can’t steer yourself into falling this way or that. Of course this is a dream we’re talking about and in dreams the laws of physics, among other laws, are temporarily suspended until your boyfriend shakes you awake, right?

I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s start at the beginning.

And you are on the front of this tandem bicycle.

And you are piloting this tandem bicycle with expert precision over that tall, narrow bridge, and you are in nigh total control.

“Nigh” means “nearly.” I say “nigh total control” because you are not in absolute total control. This is a tandem bicycle. Someone else shares your responsibility for maintaining balance and speed and pulling their own weight as well as the collective weight of the bicycle and its mission. Who is this other cyclist? You’re not sure. Could be anybody. Could be everybody. It could be any and every single person that you interact with on a regular basis—friends, family, people that you work with, the person who shakes you awake from your nightmares—everybody. And you rely on them to help you maintain a steady course and do their share of the work that needs to be done. But you are in front, gripping the handlebars, and you are in control. Nigh total control.

Then you lose that nigh total control and you need to rely on that person on the back seat a little more. Quite a bit more, actually. But unless they are a condor or a giant bat or a pteranodon, their pathetic arm-waggling will be of little use to keep you out of the river below. And thus you are all wet, trying to stay afloat, waving to a boatload of clueless tourists who’ve just paid $26 to gawk at the downtrodden residents of Camden, New Jersey like they were animals in a zoo—by far the most realistic part of this dream for anyone who lives in a city with a Duck Tour. “Yo!” you say, “Can’t yous see we’re drowning here?” But instead of them tossing you a lifesaver all you get is: “QUACK!”

Lindsay, your dream might be telling you to take a break from tandem bicycle riding for a minute. Don’t just take a back seat, take a vacation. Let other people do the steering and the pedaling altogether. Go for a walk alone in the woods. Sit and read a whimsical novel (perhaps Italo Calvino’s The Nonexistant Knight, our book of the day). Do something that does not involve other people. Let go of things for a day, a week, however long it takes to really allow the things that you feel responsible for to pack their bags and vacate your mind. Then think for a moment: What do I expect from others? What do others expect from me? Write these expectations down on some leaves that you picked up off the ground on your walk through the woods. Then, walk to a tall, narrow bridge, take a deep breath, and throw these leaves into the wind.

Or were you riding on the back of that tandem bicycle?

I thought so.

Plea For A Rickshaw

Many of you have sent in dreams about bicycles and it seems important that I feature at least one today. I myself have had recurring anxiety dreams about driving automobiles since I was a little kid. Today's dream is a hybrid of both—bike and car—and comes from Connor in Montreal, Quebec. The fourth of our 31 Dreamers writes:

I had a morning dream that was a little more intense than the usual half-asleep dream. I was leaving an anonymous workplace with some friends, the street was vaguely familiar; an ideal building and urban space—it might have been from [the Canadian TV series] Degrassi. Anyway, one of the friends was my buddy Rob, there was a faceless co-worker, and a tag-along who remained nameless but was of South Asian descent. After walking aimlessly we started talking about where I worked and what I did and how we were hiring youth workers. The tag-along expressed an interest in the job and it seemed like I was probably going to hire her—she was studying youth intervention. So finally we get to my car and decide to pile in. Once inside I ask Rob for the handlebars of his bike to replace my steering wheel, with no hesitation he hands them over (the entire bike and two people magically fit in my back seat for some reason). We start driving but I'm having a really hard time steering the car and this gets progressively harder as the dream goes on. 

We are rolling around some nameless suburban landscape, looking for something, when all these friends from my past come rolling by on bicycles. We decide we'll catch up and join them. But because of the problems steering the car with the handlebars, we are losing them fast—in fact the roads are getting narrower and we are moving really slowly and the car has morphed into a gas-guzzling Buick from the 70s. Finally we see them and need to make a U-turn into a driveway. When we do, the car sinks into the gaps in the driveway. It’s a very unusual driveway and when we get out, we can't understand it—it's kind of a metal bridge that has lots of sections missing. If you looked at it from above it would look like this:

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Anyway we're stuck in this gap and finally the old guy who lives there (and has his car parked ahead of ours) comes out and tells me that there should be no problem: "Just back right out."

The dream ends with me scratching my head.

Connor, I gather that the influence of the Degrassi television universe is a bit more pervasive in Canadian culture than in that of your yankee neighbors. Of its four TV serials, only Degrassi Junior High was afforded U.S. syndication and it was confined to the cult audience of Public Television. Thus Degrassi's tentacles of teenage drama are more likely to wrap themselves up in the Canuck subconscious spaces between Generations X and Y, and you, good sir, are no exception to this trend. But I digress (or is that "Degrass?"). Let's look at your dream:

Your dream puts you somewhere on the path between youth and adulthood. You begin as a person posited squarely in the adult world: you supervise young people; you have the power to hire others at your job; you own a car and you sit at its helm, deciding where it will take you and your friends. At the same time you want to retain your youthful identity and so replace your grown-up's steering wheel with the controls of a younger person's vehicle—bicycle handlebars. 

Suddenly you find it difficult to master this combination of puerile spirit with adult responsibility. You are not in total control of your direction. You seek things without being sure what they are. This is when your youth passes you by (all your friends on bikes) and you suddenly feel yourself outmaneuvered—trapped in the Buick of behemoth maturity and trying to navigate life's paths, which have narrowed with age, affording you less mobility. You try to bang a U-ie back to your salad days, but find yourself snagged by the driveway of your predecessors who have settled in suburbia. You step out of your vehicle and see that you are in fact stuck on the bridge between your two worlds—young and old—unable to move. The old man "who has his car parked ahead of [y]ours" (a person who took your path years ago and ended up squarely on the adult side of things) takes one look at your situation and says, "Back up sonny. You're not ready for this yet." This is the advice that you left with at the end.

However, there is further advice encoded in the middle of this dream. Who is this nameless tag-along with the South Asian ancestry whom you're probably going to hire? Your dream shows your interest in who she is and what she says peaking at about 6½ on a scale of 1 to 10. She is the spirit of youth—not of your own fleeting youth, but of younger people from whom you and I have much to learn. She reminds us to not get so wrapped up in juvenile nostalgia that we overlook people who are actually younger than us. (And yes, I suddenly jumped into this part of your dream with you because I want to adopt its messages as well. You can call me "faceless co-worker" from now on.)

The other thing that's fascinating to me is that when you plunked those handlebars onto your dashboard, you inadvertently converted your car into an auto rickshaw (also called a tuk tuk, pictured above). Rickshaws are essentially 3-wheeled covered motorcycles and are used as taxis all over Asia. Compared to the 4-wheeled automobile, the rickshaw is easier to maneuver, uses less gas and takes up less space on the road. We in the West have much to learn from the auto rickshaw—imagine if half the taxicabs in New York were replaced by rickshaws! Traffic and pollution wouldn't be nearly as bad. In your dream, your jury-rigging of the handlebars into your car seems like a plea for something different. Something that can navigate the narrow lanes between youth and maturity. Something that is stable and yet can handle a 360º turn in tight spaces. Something that is both fun and practical and takes you where you want to go. Connor, what you need is a rickshaw. Both on the streets of Montreal and on your road to happiness in life.

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Today's book is Snakes and Ladders: Glimpses of Modern India by Gita Mehta. Sadly it makes no mention of the auto rickshaw, which, given the subject matter, is surprising.