Monday, May. 27, 1974

Signs and Portents

By J.S

THE DREAMER'S DICTIONARY by STEARN ROBINSON and TOM CORBETT 256 pages. Taplinger. $9.95.

The sleep of reason brings forth monsters, and, as we now learn from this admirable dictionary of dreams, it also brings forth celery, raisins, whales, janitors, children's feet, emus and watercress. What to think? Where to turn?

Turn to page 92, if you have dreamed of an emu. There, all is made clear by Authors Robinson and Corbett: "This strange animal in a dream represents a well-meaning friend who is, nevertheless, giving you stupid advice. Don't be influenced."

Raisins are more complicated: if you ate them in your dream, tough luck, because "you can expect a season of cash going out faster than it comes in." If you stuck them in your ear, for instance, or fed them to a janitor, you can count on "pleasant social times ahead." The entry under "Pickle" is more or less what the amateur would expect: "overall satisfaction with the general state of your life, love, and pursuit of happiness is forecast." "Petunia" shows a need for professional guidance. Growing outdoors, "these flowers signify pleasant friendly social affairs." A petunia indoors foretells "a period of boredom."

Tom Corbett is billed on the dust jacket as "the well-known British psychic." His colleague Stearn Robinson is somewhat more ambiguously qualified as an interpreter of omens: she was a New York advertising woman and radio scriptwriter, listed on the book jacket as the inventor of the "integrated commercial." Their advice is to ignore dreams with a digestive origin and recurrent dreams too: these are certain to have a physiological or psychological basis and are thus without interest as portents.

Everyone dreams all the time, say the authors, so the prudent citizen eager for a dispatch from the future will go back to bed, close his eyes and pay attention. It may be possible to rig the game; there seems to be no rule against trying to dream of nasturtiums ("an unusual sexual experience"), garbage ("future success") and buffaloes ("large profits are forecast"), while avoiding grasshoppers ("confusion and complexities ahead") and giraffes ("a warning not to meddle in other people's affairs").

Students of the bizarre who have little confidence in Corbett and Robinson may be interested in the dream interpretations of another authority, who states that houses with smooth walls represent men; those with projections, women. "Zeppelin airships" represent the male sexual organ, as do hats, fish and overcoats. Snails, tables and churches are female symbols, and so are cities, fortresses and wood. A three-leaf clover is male. The interpretations in this paragraph were offered by Sigmund Freud in his Complete Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis.

J.S.

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