Thoughtless for the Day

The eminent philosopher Joe Jack Talcum used to own a copy of a nineteenth century "dream book". Basically, if you had a dream about - let's say - a horse, you would look up "horse" in the book, and next to the word "horse" would be some advice like "Now would be a good time to check in on a sick relative". Oddly, if you looked up "cheese" the book informed you that nothing good could ever come from a dream about cheese. Even more oddly, a recent study found that eating different varieties of cheese can help you choose your dreams.

For centuries our ancestors thought that dreams were visions or veiled prophecies which, if properly interpreted, could reveal the future. In the early twentieth century, Sigmund Freud hit upon that idea that our dreams were trying to tell us something ourselves: that our dreams were a window into the sub-conscience. This was of little comfort to those people who regularly dreamed of hot-dogs and donuts.

Today, we know that both of those theories are wrong (OK, most of us know those theories are wrong. This guy is still a holdout...and his website says nothing about cheese!). The current understanding is that dreams are evolution's way of allowing us to test our reactions to different scenarios and to learn from those imaginary reactions. This seems to make a great deal of sense, since many mammals dream, and I have yet to meet a cat who needed the gift of prophecy or a dog who had unresolved issues with its mother.

If you need further convincing, think about nightmares for a moment. When our ancestors roamed the plains of Africa, tens of thousands of years ago, having the occasion nightmare in which one was chased by lion might turn out to be useful if, during the dream, the hunted escaped by climbing up a tree and remembered that strategy latter. This might also explain why small children still have nightmares in which they're being chased by monsters.

In a way, our dreams are like the appendix, something that once had a useful function, but that, over time, has become obsolete, at best, and downright dangerous, at worst (my wife's nightmares have caused her to pop me in the face approximately a dozen times. Or, at least she says it's her dreams that are making her do this). While it's nice that our dreams are still trying to teach us things, there really is only one survival tactic that's useful for modern humans: Have plenty of cash on hand. And that's why RATYHL is proud to introduce Dream Money:

Image via Wikipedia

The first thing that you need to do is print out several copies of the bill above and either burn them in your fireplace or stack them next to your bedside - they make excellent bookmarks, by the way (I keep plenty of Dream Dollars of these around the house, just in case I eat the wrong kind of cheese). Then, before you go to sleep, just remind yourself that, at least in your dreams, you have plenty of pocket cash. This way, if you should find yourself having a nightmare in which some crazed, deformed mutant is chasing you with an axe, all you have to do is whip out a wad of dream cash and settle on the exact amount needed for Mr. Mutant to curtail his murderous activities. Or you could use your dream money to purchase a "dream Uzi" and deal with the issue in a more direct manner. It's that simple.

OK, since I've gone and done something really swell for humanity by inventing a currency you can use in your sleep, I'd like all of you who try Dream Money to write in and let me know how it works (or doesn't work). You see, I'm hoping to finally achieve my lifelong dream of winning the Ig-Noble Prize for Economics.