Le Rêve

Last night I dreamt in French, fluently. This isn't a first time occurrence, but it hasn't happened in a long while. I took French in high school and started almost completely over at University. My final language course was a French Lit class during a summer semester. Because the term was so short I felt very overwhelmed, but in French. It was the first class I had where nearly all instruction, reading material, and most of my notes were in French. I felt inadequate. I was nowhere near fluent and spent most of class just gazer-beaming at the instructor, praying for some gift of tongues to get me through.

During that time I was reminded of a letter I received from a friend on a mission. He said he had his first dream in Spanish that week and that was how he knew he was fluent. Up to that point he had always felt like his companion did all the talking and he was always struggling to keep up. But after that night he knew he could really speak Spanish.

At University I wanted this so badly, to go to sleep one night , dream in French, and wake up fluent. I was desperate for it. So desperate I took to watching all of our DVDs with French audio and even subtitles on occasion. (You should try Iron Man and Mr and Mrs Smith in French. Hilariously fantastic.) All of this to no avail. I did not become fluent, but I did pass the class, and I did dream a little French once or twice. But that was almost four years ago.

And it happened again out of le blue para nuit. Most of the dream happened in modern day and was in English, and then suddenly it was mideavil times and I was consorting with a man in French. Just blathering away all vous this and vous that. Oh what a world I dream.

No, I am sorry to say I didn't wake up fluent, but I do have to wonder what it all means. All that study and conjugation must be in there somewhere, buried in my self conscious. So if anyone needs a translator, just come snag me at one a.m. Apparently I sleep talk en Francais, fluently.