The Wink of Young Girl’s Eye

“Hold on a minute,” the voice on the other end of the line said, “I’ll put her on.”

“Okay…”

The “her” was in question was a former co-worker of mine whom I had not spoken with—nor even thought about, really—in quite a while.

Yet, there she was on the other end of the line telling me that she had just delivered a baby—which I could hear crying in the background.

This was intriguing, especially since we had worked together at a newspaper and midwifery hadn’t been on her resume.

Of course, she wasn’t a midwife, she hadn’t delivered a baby, and she wasn’t on the phone. And there wasn’t even a phone.

No, the whole scenario was streaming out of my subconscious to create yet another one of my oddball dreams.

This one occurred late last week and while normally I can do a decent job of deconstructing my dreams, this one has me a bit stumped.

I’ve been trying to identify the person who told me to hold on. I knew who the person was during the dream, and I suspect that she was a former coworker, as well. But her named faded from my memory the second I woke up.

And while this was going on, Bruce Springsteen’s hit single “Glory Days” suddenly popped into my head, even though I hadn’t heard it playing anywhere.

This was the fifth single from Springsteen’s Born in the USA album and it reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1985.

The lyrics to the first verse are autobiographical and describes an encounter Springsteen had with former Little League baseball teammate Joe DePugh in the summer of 1973.

They Pass You By...

Okay, first the dream. As usual, I work backwards, checking to see what had happened in the real world prior to my nighttime vision.

I had just a rotten experience on a dating app, where a woman I had been correspondeding with told me she had started seeing someone—and this was before we’d met in the real world or even spoke on the phone.

It sucks mightily to be dumped before you’ve even taken the first steps, but on the bright side you do save a lot of time and money.

But I was bummed. I had a good feeling about this woman, which was clearly misguided, and I got so annoyed after getting the heave-ho I suspended my account on the dating app.

However, I later decided that I wouldn’t let one loser keep me from meeting a potential partner, so I revived my app and hit the sack.

Now I’m wondering if that baby delivering image had something to do with me reviving that app? Sounds like a bit of stretch, but I can’t find any other driving force.

Delivering a child in a dream can symbolize new beginnings, personal growth, and positive changes. It can also represent the birth of new ideas, projects, or a fresh start in a new phase of life.

But how does my former co-worker fit into the equation? Still working on that one...

As far as the unexpected replay of The Boss’ hit from the Eighties, well, that could be due to a phenomenon called involuntary musical imagery (seriously), also known as “earworms.”

Earworms are often triggered by associations with memories, emotions, or even just hearing a similar melody, causing the brain to replay the tune.

I hadn’t heard anything like “Glory Days” or any other Springsteen song, but the memories could be related to my constant feelings of regret, which on some days hang off me like a cast iron overcoat.

There may not be a simple answer to this subliminal double play and I’m okay with that. Not every mystery needs to be solved.

And now I have this urge to contact my former colleague. I can tell her about my dream, and then we can tell boring stories about our glory days.