YOU’RE WALKING DOWN a crowded street and to your horror, you notice the people looking at you and laughing. They’re pointing at your nether regions and when you look down, you notice that you are not wearing anything but a skimpy sleeveless vest.
For an unfortunate few this is painful reality, but for most of us this only happens in our night time imaginings.
A harmless dream or evidence of a damaged psyche? Certainly, the fact that you are walking may be evidence that you possess a damaged cycle. You should always carry a spare inner tube. In fact, going to bed with a full bicycle repair kit and a pump can work wonders for your sense of security. Besides which, it could be fun. And never forget the Allen keys.
If you are truly bothered by this dream, why not try a little mind manipulation to alter it? Actually go out dressed as you were in the dream. After a few days of nonchalant shopping trips, and some narrow escapes from the police, you will find yourself fully-dressed in your dreams surrounded by a half-naked multitude.
One’s dreams change subtly as one matures.
The under-dressed one is an old classic repeated more often than Only Fools And Horses, but my inner security must be improving because now, I dream of walking into town wearing just striped pyjamas. No socks or slippers. Just pyjamas.
If this increase in security follows a logical pattern, then the dream scenarios that lie in wait become obvious.
At the age of forty-five, the patient can expect to be in striped pyjamas and a pair of checked slippers. By fifty-five he will be attired in a cord dressing gown whilst puffing on a pipe. And so it would go on, until the most cocksure dreamer marches through Oxford Street in full nocturnal regalia, plus a nightcap, a hot water bottle and a mug of cocoa.
However, lack of clothes in a dream is not the only sign of insecurity. Naturists toss and turn, assaulted by nightmares of being fully-clothed. Trendsetters, such as yours truly, are often traumatised by dreams about going into Macy’s. And buying a jacket!
Items of clothing are very significant dream symbols. A polo neck sweater with a reindeer motif suggests that your mother has not long to live. Neck ties are seen as phallic symbols, whereas bow ties mean a vasectomy is on the way. Either that, or a very nasty accident.
Different people experience insecurity in dreams in different ways. Page Three glamour girls dream they have been turned into the financial pages. Mike Tyson wakes up shivering from the haunting image of turning into Sammy Davis Junior. A gut-churning drama involving a speck of dust falling onto one of her rifles causes Sarah Palin to put a small crease in that perfectly arranged duvet. The night fears that harass Lambchop are of Shari Lewis’ fingernails turning to razor sharp steel. George W Bush’s worse nightmare is of being himself.
Above all possible dream experiences, most people have the old one of going totally unprepared into an exam. The trouble is that many of them are simply reliving the terrible truth. And, unless it was a bicycle repair exam, no amount of rubber tubing, glue and spanners would be sufficient to rebuild their battered subconscious.
Makes me wonder if nudists have nightmares about being fully dressed.
As you get older, it’s harder to tell whether you were under-dressed in a dream or in real life. Possibly both.
I hadn’t had/remmembered an under-dressed dream for years, but I had one a couple nights ago. Does this mean I am getting younger (in my dreams)?