There was a popular song of the early 20th Century, called “On the Street of Dreams” that exemplifies the functions served by dreams in confronting the harsh realities, such as were found in the early 1930s (Great Depression) and early 1940s (World War II) in the United States:
Love laughs at a king,
Kings don’t mean a thing on the street of dreams
Dreams broken in two can be made like new on the street of dreams
Gold, silver and gold
All you can hold’s up there on a moonbeam
Poor, there ain’t nobody poor
Long as love is sure on the street of dreams
In part, the lyrics to this popular song, composed in the midst of the American depression (1932-1933), suggest that dreams can provide a venue for denial of the bleak reality of life during this tragic moment in American history (“there ain’t nobody poor”). The lyrics to this song, sung by Bing Crosby and played by Ross Columbo, and Guy Lombardo, also offer an alternative to denial. One can find sufficient sustained support from other people (“long as love is sure”) to meet the challenges of the American Depression.
We find this song, sung by Frank Sinatra and the Ink Spots, once again emerging during the Second World War (1942), when a new set of challenges had to be met. We were encouraged to find love so that we “laugh at kings [such as Hitler or Moussalini].” It is by envisioning a better life in our dreams (‘on a moonbeam”) that we can sustain a sense of hope and purpose in a world that is trying to pull us into despair, fear, and a sense of hopelessness.
In this concluding essay on dreams, I explore the interplay between our street of dreams and the real world in which we live. I begin by inquiring into the way our reality influences (and even sometimes determines) our dreams. While dream researchers have long known that content from our daily activities (often called “day residue”) can influence the content of dreams that come into our sleeping life during the following night, much of the attention among those studying dreams is devoted to those dreams that are not directly (or simply) reviewing activities and concerns of the previous day. Among these “more serious” dreams are those that seem to be related to stressful events and feelings of anxiety that were precipitated by activities and events of the previous day – or present time. I turn first to these dreams.
