Help! I’ve Lost My Cell Phone and I Can’t Wake Up!
About fifteen years ago, I began to notice that people were talking on their cell phones in public. This was true everywhere I travelled: Finland, Scotland, Italy – almost every place I visited.
Today cellphone use has become endemic throughout the world. It troubles me when I see people sitting together at a restaurant who are not talking because they are too busy engaging with something on their phones rather than with one another. I wonder sometimes what this is doing for human empathy and connection.
Even so, I confess to being guilty of this myself. I have a strong attachment to being connected to the world at all times via my cell phone.
Perhaps this explains a recurring dream that I had again last night. In my dream, I can’t find my cellphone. You can imagine my discomfort, if not desperation. I don’t think I need to elaborate because you almost certainly have a cell phone and from time to time you probably also worry about losing it. A missing cellphone can be a big problem.
In my dream my first reaction is to contact Daveen and ask her to help me find my phone. My second reaction is, “How can I contact Daveen? I don’t have my phone.” As you can understand, in this case the problem itself precludes the solution.
Of course, usually – when this happens in real life – my cell phone isn’t missing at all. It’s simply in my left-hand shirt pocket instead of my right-hand pocket where I usually carry it. (I always wear dress shirts with two pockets.) Once or twice, after I’ve searched for five or ten minutes, Daveen gently points out that my cellphone is in my hand. Oops. Kind of like searching for my reading glasses when they’re on my head.
I used to worry about losing my car keys or my wallet with credit cards, or the small amount of cash I carry, but none of those have ever resulted in tragedy. So why do I worry so much about losing my cell phone?
Maybe because obsessing about the location of my phone helps me to remember where it is, and as a result, I seldom misplace it. Perhaps that fear is what erupts in my dreams, and I can’t control that. Isn’t the unconscious mind grand?
Even so, after I’ve done as much as I can to solve a problem, I let it go. So, I’m not going to spend any more time right now thinking about this.
But, come to think of it, I haven’t received any phone calls or texts for the past forty-five minutes. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just take a moment to check my right-hand shirt pocket.
Alan