Cashing in on my dreams
Last night I dreamt I went . . . not to Manderley, but deep into the dragons’ den. Remember Manderley, the sinister stately pile writ large in the 1940 psychological thriller Rebecca, directed by Alfred Hitchcock? The line about dreaming of Manderley became the novel and film’s most quotable line.
And you will be familiar with the Dragons’ Den, a TV show where budding entrepreneurs pitch to a panel of venture capitalists in the hope of securing startup investment capital to finance their business ideas.
So there was I, a chronic insomniac, enjoying the sleep of the just (care of a new herbal remedy) when I had a eureka moment. I woke up clearly remembering a vivid dream about monetising dreams.
Indulge me, Dear Reader, by posing as a dragon in the den. Not any old dragon, but a TV series producer dragon. I want you to imagine a long-inthe-tooth entrepreneur pitching her script idea in front of the panel, when suddenly she looks down and realises she is naked from the waist down. No, forget that last bit, that’s just a recurring nightmare trying to butt in.
So the script goes like this. A brilliant neuroscientist obsessed with becoming the next big noise in the study of dreams since Sigmund Freud has a breakthrough moment. During an experiment where sleeping patients are hooked up to brain-imaging machines, their dreams suddenly become watchable narratives on the screen.
The entrepreneur pitches to sell the specialised dream decoder screens to the masses so they can remember and interpret their own dreams. The idea is snapped up by the dragons, and the screens become the next best thing since Netflix.
The trouble starts when the dreams are shared and people who feature in the dreams demand a fee. Those who appear in an unflattering or pornographic role try to close down the dream machines, citing the Privacy Act. A fierce debate rages over who actually owns the dream world, or whether is it unownable.
The popularity of the dream decoders starts taking a toll on bars and nightclubs. They become deserted as people rush home from work to go to bed and wait for the next thrilling instalment in their rich dream lives.
Governments create a dream register, where those humans who appear regularly in the masses’ dreams, and who are reaping the reward of guest appearance fees, are heavily taxed.
The upside of the dream decoders is a fall in drug and alcohol-related crimes as dream decoders become the new opiate of the masses. The downside is that the masses begin to prefer their sleep life to their awake life, and the line between reality and dream life becomes blurred. Heavy dreamers become obese due to lack of exercise as they constantly refer to back issues of their dream banks to check what is real world narrative, and what is fake and dreamt.
When worldwide productivity declines, the dream decoders are outlawed and go underground, where they are sold on the dark web. Eventually all screens are banned and people revert to communicating by post or old-fashioned landline phones.
Humanity’s insatiable need for story-telling creates a resurgence of live theatre, figurative painting, books of fiction, and print news. A dream sanctuary is created where dreams are patented and become the personal property of individuals, and there is to be no mention of their content outside private space.
I’m telling you, these new herbal sleep pills are lethal. I can’t wait to drop another one and jump into bed for the next thrilling instalment. If I’d known sleep was so entertaining, I would’ve cracked on to it sooner.