ART REFLECTS LIFE — AND “TWILIGHT ZONE” IS NO DIFFERENT! Today’s dreamer has a striking example of art, life and the capacity of dreams to show us more than our waking eyes can see.

Dear SMYD,

I just saw a rerun of an old episode of “Twilight Zone” titled “Twenty-two.” In it, a woman is hospitalized after having a nervous breakdown. She tells anyone who will listen about her recurring dream. In the dream, she wakes up in her hospital bed, thirsty. When she reaches for a glass of water, she knocks it off the nightstand and the glass breaks. Then she hears footsteps and follows a nurse down the hall and into an elevator. They wind up in the hospital’s basement, at the door of Room 22. The nurse turns to her and says, “Room for one more honey.” Turns out, Room 22 is the morgue! She runs away, screaming.

When she’s released from the hospital, she goes to the airport to catch a plane and she learns her flight is #22. Then she’s thirsty and again breaks a glass. She follows people up the ramp to the airplane and when the stewardess at the top turns to her, she looks just like the nurse in the dream! And of course she says, “Room for one more honey!”

The woman runs screaming. The plane takes off and she watches it crash.

Now here’s what happened to me: I dreamed several times of finding my refrigerator door open and stuff spilled out of it onto the floor. Then I saw the window in my back door broken in a sunburst pattern.

One evening I came home from work and the gym after dark. All seemed normal as I went through the house until I came to the kitchen where, just like in the dream, the door to the fridge was hanging open and a bunch of its contents scattered on the floor. The back door was open too and the window was broken — just like in the dream.

The police said it was probably teenagers who broke in and made the mess, taking only food and beer.

It makes me wonder if Rod Serling had a recurring dream that came true!

Signed, TZ Fan

Dear TZ Fan,

Thank you so much for sharing your remarkable experience, and for the reminder of Rod Serling’s appreciation of the power of dreams. Not much explanation is required as the events of your dream played themselves out so literally in your waking life. If you had written before the actual break-in, we would be talking about the need to secure your house (a literal/real world application of your dream) as well as the need to review any immature (teenage) habits that make you careless, wasteful and inconsiderate of property (a metaphorical application of your dream).

Come to think of it, Dear Dreamer, you might want to look at that metaphor. Is a juvenile pattern of behavior leaving you vulnerable to a sudden loss of sustenance?

Sweet Dreams to you!

Carolyn Plath, M.Ed., is a Benicia resident and member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Reach her at sendmeyourdreams@yahoo.com.

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