Four Experts Try to Get Inside Readers' Heads

3) I am back at Sea World and deliberately avoiding the Shamu show, but Shamu hoists himself out of the tank and comes toward me. This time tourists are running around me, shrieking that Shamu will suck the fluid out of our kneecaps if he catches us.

These three dreams cover a span of 20 years. I had the first one in high school, the second one in college and the third one in my mid-20s.

-- Mia Dell, Washington

Barrett: I love this dream! Some dreams -- like being unprepared for a test -- remind us how similar we are. Others sound like they couldn't have originated in any other psyche on the planet. I'd like to know how you feel about killer whales in general or Shamu in particular. Is the term "killer" dominant? Are they evil, frightening creatures? Or do you think of the whale as intelligent, mysterious or something else? Is anything in your waking life out to get you? Knees may have metaphoric meaning, but I'd also want to make sure you didn't have some vague pain in your real knees you've been ignoring.

Jenkins: Think of the dream as a movie script with you in the role of the heroine. Which actress would play you? Who would play your mother? Are you rescued by a hero? If so, who would play the hero and how would he/she protect you from this threat? The "fluid in your kneecaps" is a remarkably specific reference. Perhaps your dreams know something you don't.

Good Fish, Bad Fish

In my recurring dream, I walk a long path down to a fishing spot that I don't know in real life but know fairly well from prior dreams. I primarily fish freshwater, but the dream site is actually a saltwater site connected to a bay.

I'm always alone as I fish from the shore. I throw my line out, and what I get back is almost always a large fish, but the type is a mystery until I land it. Sometimes it's a beautiful fish, obviously edible, and all is well. Sometimes it's a dangerous-looking fish with snapping jaws and big teeth, but I still feel like it's a good catch.

Once in a while, it will be one of those fish you might see in a book on deep-sea or extinct creatures: Strange-looking fish with giant teeth, dark in color, with bulging eyes or strange tentacles. This is the most scary scenario for me. They're usually not very active once landed, but I especially hate it when I catch these.

-- Tom Belcher, Ellicott City

Barrett: You should think what "fishing" means in your own life. Whatever the general metaphor, it is important to note what happened during the days when you fish out a beautiful, edible fish at night vs. those days when you land an extinct monster.

Shanor: I wonder if "fishing" provides a good metaphor for your adventures and life events. I would encourage you to program yourself to ask questions of the characters in your next "fishing" dream.

Welt: Sea water is "older" than fresh water, and the monsters that come out of it are more primitive and harder to recognize. If Freud is right -- and I don't know that he is -- we go to some lengths to disguise the most disturbing content that dreams dredge up. In your dream journal, talk to the fish. Ask what it is, what it wants, what it has to offer.

Flying . . . With Denis Leary?

A movie is being made. For some reason it requires a full-scale, functional glider to be used, so Denis Leary and I are asked to be test pilots. The gliders look like oversize cockatoos and are flown by lying across the back and holding on to the neck.

Denis goes first, without incident. I'm next, and when I'm released in midair, a robotic monarch butterfly is also released for me to chase. The butterfly circles around for a while before settling in a woman's back yard. There are other dead monarchs in the muck against the house, so it takes me a while to find the one I was following.

Along the way I also find a huge turtle in a heavy glass jar and a puppy sleeping on a paper bag containing a gold-plated astrolabe and a coin (of uncertain denomination) from "Palookaville."

-- Sam Young, McLean

Barrett: Most people find flying dreams happy and free, but you don't say what the mood is. What does this gliding feel like? Palooka actually originated in 1928 with Ham Fisher's comic strip about Joe Palooka, a slow-witted and inarticulate boxer. "Palookaville" usually means "nowheresville," but you may have your own associations to the word, or have seen the 1995 movie by that name.

Shanor: Could making a movie include a certain amount of detachment as well as exposure? Themes that seem to stand out are "flying," "freedom," "death." It'd be fun to work with you to find out more about the turtle, puppy and the contents of the bag!

Welt: Freud says some dreams throw bizarre elements around as if to insist upon the absurdity of the situation and thus ridicule the underlying wish and rob it of its intensity. This dream contains many strange details that distract from some unifying themes. The test-pilot situation, gliding, "dead monarchs," astrolabe and Palookaville all suggest anxieties and insecurities, possibilities of failure, clinging to the past -- especially when you consider that "Denis Leary" may be a pun, as I find names in dreams often are. "Cockatoo" and "astrolabe" are puns, too, but perhaps we won't go into that right now.