I dreamed that I was in a photography class the other night.
My cousin Beth was in there with me and I explained to her in extreme detail how to use achieve accurate focus on an enlarger. I went through everything, the grain focuser, lens alignment, focus shifts as you top down from wide open, optimum apertures, vibration control, etc. This is pretty arcane knowledge at this point, and I was correct in every excruciating detail. What I failed to notice was that I was trying to focus onto previously exposed and developed film. That doesn’t even make any sense. I had one of my slides on the board and was getting frustrated that I couldn’t focus the image on the slide by shining light on it. The reflection was getting to me, the last thing I remember doing was looking for a polarizing filter to get rid of the reflection coming off the film. I had conflated copy photography and printing.
I woke up wondering how I could dredge up so much technical stuff accurately, stuff that wouldn’t even occur to me without actually trying to make a print and be so far off on the main event in the darkroom. It would be like knowing all about carburetor overhauling and then wonder why a mixture of water and molasses wasn’t doing real well in the car. Strange stuff…