Professor Žigmund Phunfár is probably Slovakia's leading authority on the human unconscious, with particular expertise in the area of dream interpretation and momomancy, the capacity to divine the future by means of communing with the Universal Mind in its nocturnal subjective manifestations. To our immense and eternal gratitude, he took half an hour away from his ongoing collegiate dispute with the notorious Jungian Pedomants to offer some startling insights into what the year ahead has in store for several of our readers and for the world at large.
Dear Professor Phunfár
I have had a recurring dream recently in which I am enjoying the sunshine on the grass esplanade by Brighton beach with my mother, when all of a sudden three massive crocodiles crawl out of the sea and up the pebble beach in our direction. The vacationing crowds are generally indifferent, and I alone turn to flee, but the crocodiles ignore both my mother and me and instead bite the heads off three girls sunbathing topless nearby listening to Lady Gaga. Can you tell me what this signifies please?
Antonio
Mantua
Dear Antonio
This is a classic change of government dream. The grass esplanade signifies a turning of the corner, and Brighton, naturally, represents a celebration of some sort, usually a party or a high tea with scones. The crocodiles are indicative of the uncertainty that comes with the democratic process—subjects of dictatorships rarely dream of crocodiles, preferring the gnu—and the three sunbathing girls listening to music clearly stand for the complacency of an emasculated incumbent power. The fact that they are topless means that this will be a hung parliament, however. You may want to consider voting tactically.
Dear Professor Phunfár
In my dream my mother, who died on the operating table six months ago, appears to me in her hospital gown, gliding towards me with a mysterious smile on her face and handing me a shiny green apple to eat. I take a bite and it is filled with blood. I look down at the apple again, and it has sprouted legs that are kicking to break free of my grasp. My mother laughs and tells me she has "got me," so I throw the apple at her and it hits her in the throat and kills her stone dead. Instead of feeling shame or horror I bend down and pick up the apple and take another bite. Please tell me what this means and how I can be rid of this awful dream.
Edwina
Brazil
Dear Edwina
Dreamwork is frequently complex and circuitous, involving massive leaps of creative imagination, what Freud referred to as zydecopoiesis. What you have here is clearly a moving house dream. Your mother represents apple pie, the kind of apple pie that people receive traditionally when they move into a new house. The apple, surprisingly, represents not an apple pie but a change of routine. Perhaps after your move you will take breakfast later than normal, have a fairy cake for elevenses, start each evening meal with a donut. Do not rule out the possibility.
Dear Professor Phunfár
I constantly have a dream in which I am running naked down the local high street pursued by bears. The bears are dressed as Prussians. They never catch me but each time I try to hide I give my location away by sneezing until I wake myself up. I currently get two hours sleep a night.
Sinbad
Coventry
Dear Sinbad
It never ceases to amaze me how the human mind conceals from itself the most blatant of truths. There is a clue, of course, in the fact that you spend much of your dream hiding. A second dissimulation is to be found in your state of undress. This is what we psychoanalysts call a Freudian Slit. You have represented yourself to yourself as Naked but in fact what you really are is Caked. Why are you naked? Because you have no cakes. The cakes you are carrying in reality have been transmuted into nakedness, which is why you are empty-handed. Do you see? You are, in effect, telling yourself to make sure you buy cakes this weekend, specifically a nice Dobos torte, as represented by the Prussian bears.
I hope this helps.
Dear Professor Phunfár
I frequently dream that all my teeth are falling out. I understand Freud said that such dreams expressed anxieties about sex. What say the momomancers?
Jackie
Saint Petersburg
Dear Jackie
This is quite clearly nothing to do with sex. It is symptomatic of a perfectly natural fear that you won't be able to eat any more yummy Plundergebäcken. I suggest you stock up and see if the dream goes away.
Dear Professor Phunfár
I am standing in the middle of a field wearing a jet pack, surrounded by a large crowd. I turn on the pack to take off, but I immediately lose control and fly headfirst into a massive cake that has appeared from nowhere. Everybody laughs and then goes home, leaving me to lick my pack.
Jenny
Newtownmountkennedy
Dear Jenny
This is a wonderfully uplifting dream which tells us that you will be representing Ireland in swimming at the Olympic Games in 2016. However, you have not specified what kind of cake was involved. FYI
Layer Cake = 4 x 400m freestyle
Coffee Cake = 4 x 100m butterfly
Battenburg = the crawl
I am afraid you do not win, however.
Dear Professor Phunfár
I have a very intense dream in which I am walking through the woods with my best friend and two black Labrador dogs. Suddenly it begins to rain and without any explanation we are both naked and the dogs are licking us. Next thing I know we are climbing up a spiral staircase with no handrail and a drop of several hundred feet down the centre of it. We keep climbing. "We must see the Saracen!" my friend insists. Then everything goes pitch black and I am drowning in a lake of bitumen. I attend my own funeral where loving speeches are made by my parents and then everyone goes back to the community centre and eats Weichselstrudel, Zwetschkenröster, Linzertorte, and Salzburger Nocken, even though we live in Tibet. What does this mean?
Narayan
Shigatse
Dear Narayan
I can't help you, mate. That dream stumps me completely.
Dear Professor Phunfár
I dream most nights that I am having sex with Adolf Hitler. He is short and wiry and hairy but incredibly well-endowed, his phallus resembling a heavily veined aubergine with a chimp's head on the end. Any chance this could give me the lottery numbers?
Ian
Colchester
Dear Ian
Freud used to say, "Sometimes a pen is just a pen." Of course, what he neglected to mention was that he managed to say "penis" in that very sentence. But his point still holds. Not all dreams are predictive of the future. Often they are indicative of repressed memories or secret desires. The fact that Hitler died over six decades ago should alert you to this. You do not specify how old you are, but this dream means either that you had sex with Hitler or else that you fantasize about having sex than Hitler. It's as simple as that.
Glad to be of assistance.
Do you have any dreams you'd like Professor Phunfár to interpret? They don't even have to be particularly pastry-based. Just send your dream in a white cardboard box along with some chocolate eclairs to
Professor Žigmund Phunfár
Knodelstrasse 3
Der Graben
Vienna
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