When you wish upon a star

"A dream is a wish your heart makes
When you're fast asleep
In dreams you can lose your heartache
Whatever you wish for, you keep

Have faith in your dreams and someday
Your rainbow will come smiling thru
No matter how your heart is grieving
If you keep on believing
the dream that you wish will come true

- Disney's Cinderella

Having never been male, I can't tell you any of the common themes that guys dream about. I can, however, give you some idea of what women dream about. Not all the time, mind you, but here's one example of a common female dream; I call it "The Wedding".

While the circumstances can vary, nearly every woman I've ever talked to (about dreams) has had at least one dream about getting married. And a thread runs along these: usually the face of the bridegroom is fuzzy, or blank. Or you just can't remember it when you wake up.

In the Christian community, there's so much emphasis on "the one" person that you're supposed to marry, that this dream drives us nuts, since we assume the person in the dream is "the one" and that we'll know who he is when we meet him, or when God reveals him.

I don't buy into "the one" theory very much. There are too many holes in it for me to believe it in any sense but the loosest.

Last night I had a wedding dream. Now, this one was different from most since I was being coerced into marriage by some "bad guys". The details here are not clear, but let me just say that Ron, Hermione, and I somehow realized that the bad guys would stop chasing me if I got married.

So somehow I managed to pull a fancy wedding out of nowhere, with all the relevant guests there. I was getting married to my latest ex, and we got to the "I Do's". When the minister turned to me and asked me if I Did I realized that I Couldn't. I said so, and he left peaceably, which in turn left me still needing someone to marry. So I texted a friend and he rather helpfully came by to save my skin. However, we had only known each other for a couple of months, so he was feeling reasonably awkward about the arrangement to which he had just agreed.

The difference between this and every other wedding dream I've ever had is that I knew who it was I was marrying. There was no blanked-out face. It was someone that I recently met.

When I realized he was unsure about the arrangement, I gave a speech that I know I would probably never give in real life because it expressed far more self-esteem than I have ever conjured up. I think I can remember it verbatim:

"Look, I know you are not sure about this. We barely know each other. But from the moment I saw you, I knew that you were the only one for me. You are kind and intelligent. You are caring and funny. You love Jesus. I've loved you from the second we met. And I promise, I pledge ot you that I will make you happy. You're going to love being married to me. It won't always be easy or fun, but I know that we will be happy for the rest of our lives because God put us together."

Now, I have serious doubts about my ability to make someone happy for a long period of time. And I don't think I could ever tell someone that I knew about him form the moment I saw him, even if it was true. As the dream went on, though, it did become true and I had my happily ever after.

Too bad it was only a dream. Everyone knows dreams don't come true.