There was a wonderful remark someone made once -- I think it was Wittgenstein -- to the effect that if there is really a dream language, we should be able not only to translate from the dream language into our everyday life, but also to translante back.
I have often since wondered about this.
As someone who also appreciates the pristine joy of the occasional nap, I'd still say that in my experience, dreams aren't at all futile and are more often than not quite meaningful. But you have to know what to do with them. It's a bit like trying to read emotions. Say you walk into a place you're interviewing for a new job, and a certain feeling floats back to you of the traumas of seventh grade gym class. Maybe it's something simple -- this building uses the same kind of floor cleaner that your junior high gym used, and you've never forgotten the smell. But maybe it's something more complicated -- as you stood there watching people walk through the lobby on their way to work, you felt a certain lack of energy and a certain monolithic formality. And both of these are useful things to have recognized.
About the bandanna -- Do you feel for instance that somebody else recently got something which is yours, or was due to you? Are you under pressure to do something fabulous but not sure when the rewards will come? Are you avoiding hamburgers and upset that everybody else gets to eat them?
The body, and the emotions, don't necessarily communicate by means of reasoned arguments, but there's always a response to something. At times when I go to bed amidst a nebulous mass of strong emotion which I can't quite settle down and can't quite understand, an image or situation will float by in a dream which allows me to pinpoint what I'm really feeling and why. It's like a very creative friend is there to listen to you mope or worry and say "Remember the time you carried the ice cream all the way home to share it and your friend wasn't allowed to eat it? It's like that." Sometimes, of course, the friend gets carried away with her own beautiful images, and you have to know where to draw the line in your interpretations. "Which reminds me, speaking of ice cream..."
