10.27.2006

Dream Weaving

I’ve been dreaming of cell phones, really specific dreams about their features and their functionality, their form and how they serve my life. I could use the word obsession.

I don’t upgrade my cellular equipment as often as my plan allows, ignoring the every two years free phone with a renewed contract offer. Free doesn’t exist. Free-er, perhaps. Read the fine print. You pay tax. Full, retail price, tax. You pay for all the money-grabbing accessories that don’t migrate from phone to phone – the car charger with the unique fit, the headset with a unique personality, and any other add-ons your sales rep can convince you are must haves.

But at this point, I am long overdue for a new phone. I can only make one call before it needs recharging. While I could simply buy a new battery, the dangling carrot tells me it’s better to leap for the new phone. Purchasing a battery for an ancient phone falls into the category of ‘throwing good money after bad’. Don’t you love such expressions? Don’t you wish you could originate one that would follow you and others around for decades as you proudly say, “I made that up”? Naturally, no one would believe you, but you’d know the truth and could find joy in that alone.

But I digress.

While it’s more environmentally responsible to keep an old phone than to participate in our disposable society, my older model is rumored to emit far more radiation than newer models, so if it’s between me and the planet, I pick me. Call me selfish.

By now, diving in and selecting a new phone feels like a considerable decision. I see how long I hold onto a phone. If I buy the next device prematurely without proper investigation, I’m stuck with it for two years, unless I want to outlay a healthy chunk of money.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so concerned about my choice. Until recently, I hadn’t noticed that I’ll soon be celebrating my current phone’s fourth birthday, which in electronic terms is far beyond retirement age. However, I might not linger so comfortably with my next phone. With all the new properties phones possess, I could miss out on a key feature if I buy today instead of tomorrow. They already offer a cell phone that has a navigational system. They might soon come out with one that can locate my misplaced item du jour. Such things must not be passed up lightly.

For purchasing guidance, I reexamine my cell phone dreams, the dreams that would likely serve me far better if they revolved around hot sex that allowed me to wake up with a smile on my face. Instead I’m REM-ing through visions of a beautiful, sleek, minute, indestructible cell phone sliding into my pocket. It’s fantasy of the consumer kind. This phone doesn’t exist.

In an effort to understand my subconscious’ longings, I visit an online dream dictionary and jump to ‘C’.

Cell Phone
To see or use a cell phone in your dream indicates that you are being receptive to new information. It also represents your mobility.

Hmmm, this is very interesting. Only, I’m a bit skeptical. Well, really skeptical. Perhaps dreaming of a cell phone means I spent an hour at the Verizon store without any sales person ever becoming available to help me. Or maybe it means I then went online and tried to decipher all the different models without getting to hold them in my hand. Or maybe it reflects back on my conversation with a kind Verizon rep I phoned to ask if she knew when the next batch of new phones was slated for release. Maybe my phone dreams were about how many of my waking hours I wasted thinking about my new device.

Or maybe this dictionary is right and I am open to new information.

So I go back to the resource. I read through many listings, fascinated by how they cover all bases. For instance, dreaming of cake signifies: needing to learn to share, selfishness, your accomplishments, missed opportunities, and learning to be comfortable in the spotlight.

I’m condensing and paraphrasing.

The listing for accordion catches my attention:
To hear the music of an accordion signifies that some amusement and joy will take your mind off a saddening and depressing matter.
To dream that you play the accordion denotes intense emotions that are causing you some physical strain and body weariness.

I used to be married to an accordion player. I heard accordion music all the time. The fact that his playing drifted into my dreams seems natural, even dismissive if it didn’t. And if he dreamt about it, am I really to believe the negative implications this dictionary suggests? I feel a disclaimer for actual accordion players and their spouses is called for. Just a suggestion.

The more entries I read, the more I think I am wading through what a bunch of drunks scrawled on bar napkins after a drinking game. I’d like to write for one of these sites. It seems like a lot of fun. Talk about creative writing.

I don’t mean to fully malign dream analysis. I suspect there are recurring themes to our dreams, common sentiments that speak to us through symbols. But overall, I just don’t see all of us as reducible to such broad generalizations. Are we really to believe that our daily encounters and experiences don’t guest star in our dreams, that it’s only the deep psyche that speaks to us as we sleep? And most obviously, how do we verify any of the claims of dream dictionaries?

For now, I will return to the loudest message from my dreams: Go buy a cell phone and get over it. It is a phone, merely a phone. You have one month to commit, and then I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense. Buyer’s remorse be damned.

And as far as my dreams, I’ll see if I can nudge them towards a sexier variety. Maybe I’ll shop in a different kind of store this afternoon.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That must have been so cool to be married to an accordian player. Was there music in your home all the time?

As for the phone -- yes, there are cool things phones can do nowadays. I can use mine as a GPS, watch TV, read the NY Times. But each of these things costs MONEY. So, chances on, if you're not willing to spend $300 a month on all these accessories, you should mostly worry about the size of the phone and how it fits in your hand. Do you want the small one that easily fits into your purse or the bigger one that you will less likely lose?

Anonymous said...

Yes, it is very confusing when you buy a phone and there are SO many features one can have, how to choose? I'm of the thinking that simpler is better and much like those TV's that also had the VCR, if one breaks, than you're out 2 devices. Although having a camera in your phone is kinda cool even if the pictures are crap.

Anonymous said...

God I need a new phone too, scary steps for a non technical mind like mine. I love your comments about creative writing for a site like dream dictionary, that is very inspirational, but am in a bloggy dry spell so can't even be creative on my blog.

Roberta Lipp said...

Interesting... there has been a lot going on in my life around the topics of cell phones and dream interpretations.
I have been through hell lately... HELL I say with cell phones. I was going to blog about it but I couldn't see it as anything more than painful to read, considering that it was nothing more than painful to live. As of just yesterday, I think I am resolved.
On dreams... I wish I knew how to hyperlink in a comment, but my sister has blogged about a couple of dreams (here's the one where I commented a whole lot and it was quite the dialogue: http://www.deborahlipp.com/wordpress/?p=708)
and I'm with you, I don't buy into any of the definitions. At least not definitively. I think dreams are so many things... psychic and collective and psychological and tactile and just a processing and elimination of so much input. A co-worker was telling me about a dream filled with black birds. To some that might mean death. She happens to love birds, in like an animal loving way. So who knows?
Get the new phone. Go to a dollar store or an Odd Lot type place and get a universal phone charger. Never say die.

Girlplustwo said...

maybe if you walk into the room of cell phones one of them will tell you which one you need to take home?

I absolutely am loving that you were married to an accordion player.

Margaret said...

maybe the right phone for you will present it's self in a dream

Emily said...

Good luck with the new cell phone, good luck finding sexier dreams :)