Answer:
ExplanationI’d like to start by asking you to do three things.
First, please bring into your mind the most memorable dream you’ve ever had, whether it’s from last night, last week, many years ago, or all the way back in childhood. Your most memorable dream, whatever comes to mind. (If it’s a really upsetting nightmare, you can choose a different one.)
Second, give this dream a title, as if it were a poem or short story.
Third, turn to the people on your left and your right, and share with them your dream title. If don’t remember a dream or don’t want to talk about it, it’s fine to just say “pass” or “nothing came to mind.” Otherwise, go ahead and share your dream’s title—and just the title, not the whole dream. We’ll be here all night if we go down that road.
Excellent. And so you know, my own most memorable dream occurred in my early 20’s, and I titled it “Being Dissected by the Evil Alien.”
What we have just done is a little oneiric ritual, a kind of dreaming invocation. It’s a way of welcoming you here as dreamers, and highlighting the fact that you are surrounded by dreamers.
THE QUESTION
It’s also a way of connecting our discussion tonight with an ancient and universal human practice, the practice of talking about dreams. Not just personal dreams, but about the nature of dreaming itself, trying to understand what happens when we dream and how these strange yet compelling experiences relate to waking life. Throughout history, in cultures all over the world, people have wondered about the very same question we’re going to consider tonight. We are merely the latest in a long lineage of humans who have gathered together under the stars, or their simulacra, to ponder these issues.