European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 16, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Columns so what if you re nude in Sears dream on. By Dave Barry Knight Ridder newspapers today s science topic is what causes dreams specifically does everybody dream about being nude in the Sears appliance department answer yes. This is extremely Normal. It happens to me constantly. I am so accustomed to falling asleep and finding myself naked As a Jaybird amid Sears appliances that i routinely take my credit card to bed. Let me see something in a medium appliance Carton with Eye holes in it i say in this dream to the salesperson who does not seem at All surprised to see a nude shopper. Like most of the people you meet in dreams he tends to be very casual about unexpected developments. He knows that at any moment All his Washer dryer combinations could turn into scorpions or Pittsburgh or giant singing Yoo Hoo bottles or that he himself could suddenly turn into Bess Myerson or possibly if you were having a Nightmare the Rev. Oral Roberts threatening to die if i Don t buy the extended service warranty on the scorpions. You think this is a stupid dream right Well i bet you Don t exactly sound like Captain coherent when you Tell your friends about your dreams. I bet you sound like this of i was in grand Central station but it was t grand Central station you know it was More like if grand Central station was really a Dairy Queen inside some kind of huge garment bag but with Fig Trees. So anyway there was this israeli Soldier but he was really my father Only he sounded like Sally Jessy Raphael except he had Antlers. Huh your friends say edging carefully from the room. That s very interesting the reason we tend to feel this Way about other people s dreams is that we Are not trained psychiatric professionals. If we were we would realize that by listening carefully and analytically to a subject s descriptions of his or her dreams we could Over the course of time make thousands of dollars. This psychiatric phenomenon was discovered by or. Sigmund Freud. In his ground breaking scientific paper he revealed that the human brain which appears if you hold one in your hand to be a solid mass of tissue that could be used in a very Strong prank involving a salad bar is actually divided into Many parts such As the lobes which Are responsible for getting headaches and the memory Bank which performs the incredibly Complex task of managing billions of interconnected brain cells in such a Way that you can instantly recall the name of the band that did 96 tears question Mark and the myst Rian but have no idea where you put your car keys. Psychologically the most important parts of your brain Are the id a Small slime covered organism that hardly Ever gets to leave your subconscious and consequently thinks about nothing except sex and the ego in women the egress which oversees All of your mental activity until your fourth Beer and which because it is very strict is sometimes referred to As the Rev. Jerry Falwell of the brain. When you dream your id is actually sending dirty messages to your ego which secretly gets a big kick out of them but then cleans them up for display purposes by turning everything into symbolism. For example when you dreamed about the Dairy Queen inside the garment bag you were of course really dreaming about an act that should never be attempted by anyone other than a certified trampoline instructor with a thorough knowledge of snorkel procedures and livestock management but you should not be ashamed of this. It s perfectly Normal i myself have seen it performed several times in the Sears appliance department. Besides helping us to understand that we Are perverts dreams can also solve our problems. A famous example of this can be found in the following encyclopaedia Britannica quotation which i am not making up ". Kekule von Stra Donitz struggling to find the Structure of the benzene molecule dreamed of a Snake biting its Tail and on waking realized that benzene has the form of a  besides revealing that . Kekule von St Radonitz was probably a fun dude this anecdote provides us with a practical Model for using dream Power to improve our own lives. The next time you re wrestling with a knotty problem that you just can t solve try sleeping on it. Chances Are in the dead of night you la sit straight up in bed and in a voice loud enough to induce cardiac arrest in your spouse shout that s it benzene has the form of a ring another question commonly used to Start paragraphs is what physically happens to us when we dream researchers have spent years closely observing the sleep patterns of human subjects and despite the fact that the subjects keep kicking them out of bed they have been Able to determine that human sleep is actually divided into distinct stages including dozing off when you find out who s replacing Johnny Carson snoring being awakened by a strange sound that turns out to be the dog for some reason trying to dig a Hole in the carpet Etc. The actual dreaming process however does not begin until you reach the stage called rapid Eye movement or Rem in which your eyeballs Start to twitch Back and Forth then suddenly rotate 180 degrees so they can see the Little screen where the dream is projected inside the Back of your Skull. This sounds risky but in fact there s virtually no Chance that you la be suddenly awakened and your eyeballs will be stuck pointing backward. Unless of course you own an alarm clock. Compliments about weight loss might backfire by miss manners United feature Syndicate dear miss manners for years As a complimentary gesture i have often commented when greeting a Friend i Haven t seen for a while my you look As if you be lost some  my thought was that most people Are self conscious about being overweight and a remark that they have lost weight would be a compliment. A Friend told me that such a comment is too personal and not in Good  but several of my female friends seemed so pleased with my observation of their weight reduction that they almost kissed me. Am i being rude or Forward gentle Reader it May Well be True that most people would like to be thinner than they Are which is not the same thing As saying that most people Are overweight and will appreciate your remark. It is extremely dangerous however to count on such generalizations when you select personal remarks to make to friends. You Are Apt to encounter someone whose weight loss is the result of severe illness or stress and that person is unlikely to Greet your intended compliment with a kiss. Politeness requires your compliments to be a Little less pointed. How wonderful you look will achieve the desired effect without the danger. Dear miss manners i was the Secretary to the manager of personal development and education for a Large corporation. He was an elderly gentleman who often referred to secretaries As  i corrected him on Many occasions saying it was very rude and demeaning. He insisted that it was proper and said i was just being extremely Picky. I still work for the corporation and he s still doing it. Please help me set him straight. Gentle Reader miss manners took a Good look at the postmark on this letter and was surprised not to find that it had passed a decade in transit. Then she began to wonder where this gentleman has been spending the last few decades. For his Sake and the Sake of the company you must Tell him that times have changed. It was never Correct to refer to an adult employee As a girl but it was usual. To do so now that it no longer is common is to suggest to prospective female employees that they will be unfairly treated in the company and that s not the sort of message a personnel department generally wishes to Send. It is too bad that he has interpreted your explanation to be an idiosyncratic complaint. The next step is to Send a gently worded memorandum from the company s female staff members saying they would like to have the practice discontinued. Dear miss manners in t it improper to be late for dinner my husband is consistently late to sit Down even when i Tell him it s ready 10 minutes before it actually is to be served. He says he always did this when growing up because he ate All that was left Over and he likes his food cold. I am an excellent Cook and i prefer to eat things at their proper temperature. I feel uncomfortable starting before him and irritated to wait to Call him to dinner two or three times before he arrives which sets a bad example for the children. Gentle Reader Why does miss manners who certainly shares your belief in dinner time promptness and Good parental examples have a sneaking sympathy for your husband it is partly because she fears that your husband is onto your Early Calls and keeps trying to arrange to get to dinner when it is actually about to Start. But it is also that miss manners believes that adults should within reason be Able to indulge their food preferences at their own dinner tables. Excellent Cook that you Are could you not put your husband s food out to Cool before yours and the children a or keep the latter on a heated Platter surely such consideration would inspire him to get to the table on time so that you too can have your meals As you like them. Dear miss manners my husband and i entertain quite often our favorite being Small dinners with friends. We share All the work equally and they always go off Well. My Only problem is that my husband is a sports nut. Our Large dining room connects to the living room and if a big game is one he insists on leaving the television on so he can glimpse it during the meal. It can Only be seen by half the table and the sound is off but i still think it is wrong. He says he just glances at it and that these Days just about everyone watches television while eating. Gentle Reader miss manners refuses to rescind the absolute Rule against television during dinner much less dinner parties other than for events specifically planned around a particular television broadcast. But for goodness Sake can t you invite people Over when there is no game on or record it for viewing later february 16, 1989 stripes Magazine