Dreams: An alternative source of income...

As a child growing up it always seemed as you could never surprise my grandmother. She knew everything by her dreams. A dream of a pumpkin or fish would get her questioning all the ladies around as to who was pregnant. Clear water, such as a running river would definitely mean good luck, whereas dirty or muddy water was 'crosses' or 'trouble'. If her right hand itched it was sure sign of money coming her way, whereas if it were the left she would be spending. If your lip jumed (i.e. twitched) it meant a quarrel, and similarly if your eyelids twitched you would certainly cry. Decisions were guided by omens - good and bad - and there would always be the inevitable 'mi neva tell yu dat did a go happen, mi did dream it but unu neva belive me'.

In what everyone agrees are trying economic times, I guess all sources of income - once legitimate - are par for the course. Here in Jamaica additional sources extends to dreams as well! It's not uncommon it seems to be asked ' so is what yu dream see las' night' or for someone to be walking on the road and 'seeing a sign' (i.e. something out of the ordinary) and decide that they too must interpret this and buy 'lotto', i.e. the lottery.

Of course interpretation of dreams are nothing new - in any culture - but in Jamaica, yes, they have money making possibilities. Saw a locally produced dream guide today and was quite intrigued. There was :

1. A 'lotto man' which was the features of a body with each body part corresponding to a number;
   
2. A numbers chart from 1 to 36 with each number representing several things, for example number 33 represented big house, church, God, stadium and boat, while 22 was pain, nurse, white woman and diamond. Go figure.
3. Millennium mega dreams for Pick 3 ( a game involving the correct selection of 3 numbers)
4. Meaning of the letters of the alphabet - e.g. A - 1, 5, 40; P - 3, 20, 28 and Z - 13, 19, 27
   
5. Millennium mega dreams for drop pan (aka Cash Pot) & lotto - arranged alphabetically! Some interesting ones :
   

• Aircraft - 29
• American - 27, 31,
• Belly - 8, 7,
• Brain (healthy) - 3, 29
• Brain (sick) - 9, 22
• British - 28 ( did check for Ghanaian but no luck - not yet included in the dictionary it seems)
• Crazy (a little) - 1
• Safety pin - 18
• Water - 6
• Young girl - 16

Some 'words' had several interpretations depending on what type of dream one had. Dogs for instance seemed quite popular with dog (93, 11, 12, 15, 21, 28), dog barking (31), dog big (26), dog bull (29), dog playing with (5,11,30), dog bitch (12) dog, chase or hunt ( 3, 20), dog, hot (18, 30), dog, several (6), dog to play with (3, 33). The mega dreams for drop pan and lotto actually took up 47 pages!

Of course now feeling sorry that I am not one who dreams on a regular basis but for the rest of you who do - sweet dreams!