Dream Journal - early morning, Feb. 1, 2013

Most of the dreams I have are forgotten within moments after waking. The more intense ones may last a couple of hours before completely vanishing from my memory. But the one I had last night has stuck with me all day and I think I should probably write it out as best I can.

So, it starts with me and my wife at a concert or a movie, some kind of function that requires a theater. There is an intermission and we leave each other to go to the restroom, etc. I'm standing in a stall relieving myself and there's a guy in the one next to me who is controlling the flow of his urine in such a manner that the splashes made by the stream actually have a rhythm recognizable as a well known song. I'm amazed at this talent and try to compliment him. He just looks at me with sort of a condescension in his facial expression. Obviously he has no desire to talk to me. I say a few things on the way out, all of which are completely random and have nothing to do with the situation. Instead of saying "goodbye" I say "Be-bop-a-lula, baby!"

The program starts back up but the wife is nowhere to be found. I look all over for her and ask total strangers if they know where she's at. I start to panic. Next thing I know I'm in a car with my father driving. I start to grill him about where my wife might be, convinced that he knows. He says nothing...in many of the dreams I have of him he does not say a word. I get really, really pissed off that he won't tell me. I get mouthy and disrespectful, but he just looks straight ahead and drives.

Then I realize that wherever he is going is where my wife will be. It's not too long after that revelation that we pull up to a house and he gets out, walking to the door. I do the same and all of a sudden I know where I am and that my wife is probably not there. It's my mother's house.

I walk in and there she stands...she didn't look like my mother in the dream, but I knew this was who it was. I could not help but believe that dad had taken me to her because she didn't have long to live and I just broke down, sobbing "mama, mama, mama" with my head on her shoulder. Don't know where my dad went off to, but it was at this point that I woke up.

I lay in the bed almost as if I'd had a nightmare. I tried for a long time to put the pieces together and figure out what it all meant. The easy answer would be that my relationship with my mother is for all intents and purposes non-existent and this was a precursor to the inevitable time of reckoning. Then I thought there must be some reason that dad was the one who drove me there. They had been divorced for many years before his passing but she was always his true love. His demeanor was almost solemn as he took me there. Then there's the connection between losing my wife and finding my mother. There's got to be some kind of Jungian explanation for that. As for the pissin' musician, who knows why I still remember him. Maybe it's because he was so talented.

dream journal: truckers en masse & unlucky pilots

Two nights in a row now that I've had vivid dreams (see post below). This one wasn't quite as uplifting, to be sure, but quite spectacular in it's own morbid way.

Not a whole lot to it, really, though quite powerful. First I noticed that there more 18 wheeler semi trucks driving through town. Many more than usual. Broadway and Main Street in the town where I live are the intersections of two important state highways so we do get quite a few big trucks hauling their goods across these roads. Some are on the way to the Interstate seven miles away. Others may be trying to avoid the Interstate for whatever reason. In this dream there were at least twice as many coming through town than was normal.

Next thing I found myself at the car wash. I wasn't washing the car or doing anything that might need to be done at a car wash. I think I was talking to someone on the phone. The signal was becoming very sketchy. I heard the announcer on the radio saying something about how there would be a lot of jet airplanes in the sky today so I figured the airplanes had something to do with it (why, I don't know. It was a dream, right?). Sure enough I see a plane flying over to the east.

Then I heard one of them flying particularly close, heading toward me. From a very high altitude and at full speed the plane's nose turns to the ground. It only took a few seconds before I saw the explosion. Incredibly violent. It had been flying so fast that it was basically consumed in the fire the second it hit the ground. The crash couldn't have been much more than a hundred yards from me, but there was no shrapnel.

I turned away and tried to call 911...or maybe I called my wife first and then tried to call 911, I don't remember. Before I could get off the phone there was another brilliant explosion to the north, near a cafe on the side of Broadway.

A period of time passed until I became keenly aware than no fire trucks or ambulances had been dispatched to the scene. Not even the sound of a police siren. I walked toward the scene of the second crash and there was smoke bellowing out but it didn't look nearly as wrecked as I thought it would.

I got back in my car and headed home on a back road I often use as a short cut. I almost never see any other cars on this mile long stretch of what used to be part of the highway a long, long time ago. But in the dream there was a solid line of 18 wheelers all headed in one direction (south). They weren't crawling slowly as if they were in a line at a parade. They were really tooling along.

It was at this point that I woke up. Thinking about it now I can see that it was an unusual, rare dream. I've had many dreams over the course of my life about planes crashing. Usually they are smaller passenger planes or huge commercial airliners. I'm sure I've dreamed of jets, too, but apparently they were not remarkable enough to have been retained in my memory. Yet that's not what made it rare.

Every time I've ever dreamed of airplane disasters I've woken up immediately after the crash. These are the kind of dreams I feel kind of shaken by upon waking. Yet in this one I stay in the dream after the first crash...I even stay in the dream after the second crash all the way up to getting past the back road convoy. I'm not sure at all what that means, if it signifies anything. I read some interpretations earlier this morning and the most logical was the one that postulated the jets as goals and ambitions, things I want or need to do before I leave the planet. The crashing of the planes symbolizes fear of those hopes and dreams being left unrealized and undone. It's supposed to be a warning that I should get my shit together and carpe deum.

All of which may well be true but I really think it's more complicated in my case. So much so that I fear I'm full of crap. Even if I'm not full of crap it would take a long, long time for me to explore the labyrinth of my psyche hoping for significance in a dream. The things I'd find would probably not be stuff I'd want to relate here so it's probably best for myself and everyone else if I simply leave it at that...

...an awesome, action packed dream with just enough David Lynchian weirdness to set it apart from others.

Dream Journal: the Jonsi Daisy Chain

Last night I dreamed I went to a Jonsi concert with my friend Tristan Shutt.  It was a typical venue but something seemed a little "off". The first thing we saw that was out of the ordinary was the seating. Very organized rows of office chairs directly in front of the stage instead of the floor area crowded with the hardcore fans (where we would have been). Tristan sought out and found a choice seat on the end of a row very close to the stage. So close that I worried the volume of the music so close would make my ears ring for the next month. Then I thought, not for the first time, "well, it's a Jonsi show and will be worth it".

The stage was fairly large, lined with lights that stretched all the way round. When they slowly came up, accompanied by the "overture" music, a long line of leprechauns hopped, skipped and ran from left to right in front of us. Small leprechauns, much smaller than midgets. Obviously part of the show, or so we figured because next thing you know there are "normal sized" people following them, trotting merrily, laughing. The line just kept on going round and then we realized that the leprechauns had been joined by people in the audience, who would randomly jump up and join the chain.

I turned to Tristan to see if he had caught on. Of course he had and to my surprise he jumped up himself and joined the fray.

So I'm sitting there, seeing all this craziness unfold around me, the whole place just filled with laughter and childish fun. I'm not the only one still sitting but the number of abstainers was dwindling. I thought, "that looks like so much fun, but I can't do that. It's just not 'me'. I'd look like a fool." So I watched, amused.

Then I had that thought again..."well, it's a Jonsi show. It will be worth it." And "worth what? The embarrassment  Everyone else is doing it, who is there to be embarrassed for?" It was with a great degree of surprise when I found myself actually considering doing it. But I held back and stood my ground.

For about thirty seconds...

I couldn't help it. It was actually like pushing down a wall to get to the other side, still convinced that I was doing the wrong thing, maybe that I'd regret it. But all these people were hopping and skipping...Tristan was out there with them...I basically said "what the hell", got up and started running in the circle, leaning to the left like I was taking a sharp turn on a Harley.

I laughed like a fool. Like a madman! So much so that I was seriously hoping noone would think I actually was crazy. I laughed so hard that I cried in the mix. I don't think I've laughed so hard since listening to a Richard Pryor record when I was in high school. Or maybe in an elevated situation with a close circle of friends back in the early 90s. No, running around those ordered office chairs in the theater was the most fun thing I'd ever done, I'd never laughed so hard in my life.

I was still whooping it up in the dream when I woke up. Sometimes when I'm really frightened at the end of a dream I will make grunting/groaning noises before I wake up. After this dream I was sure I'd come out laughing. But as it turned out I didn't make a sound (according to the reliable testimony of my wife). I was quite surprised I didn't because, as I've said, my inhibitions, fortified as they are, were shed like dirty clothes at the end of the day.

The crazy thing is that Jonsi never took the stage in my dream. If that daisy chain had lasted a couple hours I would not have even cared (much as I love Jonsi). Then again I don't think I could have lasted even another hour doing that crazy locomotion before fatally busting a gut.

What does it mean? What would Carl Jung say? Maybe Sigmund Freud could cast some illumination on what surely must been a revelation directly from the deepest well of my subconscious? Or is it something much simpler than that? Something that even someone who doesn't know me could figure out and explain based on nothing more than what I've written here? Then again there is always the probability that it means absolutely nothing. Just a great, fun dream, a treat from the psyche, unused to such frolics.

Of course the last explanation is the logical one. No one likes to realize he's a fuddy duddy who may not even know how to have fun anymore. This dream practically screams "THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO!!!" but I'll ignore it and just "stay in my seat". Like my butt is glued to it. Like my shoes are nailed to the floor and I can't reach them because my back is super-glued to the chair as well. I've been in this unenviable position for so long that I have no idea who put me there or why, only that time has convinced me that I'll never break free, never melt the glue or pry the nails from the ground. And that, my friends, is depression. So a dream like this is not so much a reminder of "what could be" (it never could) as it is "what once was", even if that was long, long ago as a little child playing "ring around the rosey" and whirling around in a daisy chain.

Then of course it could just be symbolic of the joy we'll enter into once we give up our bodies, tied to this paradigm/reality/experience as we all are. If such is the case, all I can say is that all the pain and suffering we've been burdened with in our lifetimes will have been worth it all. If this freedom from inhibition is the normal state of mind in "Heaven" indeed we have much to look forward to and nothing to fear in death.

That's the "dream interpretation" I'd prefer. But it's the "fuddy-duddy" one I'm tempted to believe.

Dream Journal: December 15, 2011

I dreamed I was at a small department store across the street from the Dollar General store. I bought a bunch of junk food. Cookies, candies and two Slim Jim meat sticks which were twice as tall as the bag the stuff was in. As a result I had a difficult time tying the bag, which I would not have worried about but I had to go to the Dollar store for some other things and worried that the clerk there would think I'd brought it in to shoplift.

As I walked into the store the first thing I noticed was Sandy Denny playing on the store's sound system. Odd that someone would be playing Denny, but even more so because the Dollar store doesn't even have an in-store sound system. I decided it must be coming from the portable stereo at the check-out counter. I made a point to congratulate the cashier on her excellent choice in music. 

I showed the checker my tied-up bag from across the street to let her know that she could trust me not to rip them off, then I walked to the back of the store where the fabric softeners were kept. Apparently a bottle of Downy was my purpose for coming to the store. To the strains of "Listen, Listen" I checked out the stock only to find that they were out of the proper size. They only had a slightly smaller bottle and a really big bottle...but both of them were only half full. I noticed that all the brands of fabric softener were half full and I thought, well maybe you're supposed to add water now? 

I decided I'd wait until I was sure the situation wasn't universal before making a purchase and I walked towards the exit, still intending to compliment the cashier for her choice of music.  When I saw her I was struck with the impression that she was not the kind of person who liked Sandy Denny. Don't ask me why. I know it's stupid. But it discouraged me from saying anything. 

There was a small refrigerator near the counter...not one of those refrigerator units the keep soda pop in, you know, the point-of-purchase "yeah, might as well get something to drink, never mind that it's twice the price of warm soda in the pop section" trick. Just a small ice box. I opened the door and as the frost rolled out I noticed something in the door shelf. A CD. A copy of "No More Sad Refrains: the Sandy Denny Anthology". What it was doing in there I wouldn't even presume to guess, but I wasn't going to say anything about it. 

I walked out of the store befuddled and I woke up even more so. I'm not convinced that dream interpretation isn't on the same level as telephone psychic hot lines, but it would be interesting, even if not enlightening, to know what this one signified. Some possible factors that may play into a genuine interpretation:

• I've been fairly successful in maintaining a low calorie diet over the last month or two. The junk food (especially the Slim Jims) represents a strong craving for food that actually tastes good.

• A paranoid suspicion that people, store employees in general, think I'm going to steal from them, even though it's the farthest thing from my mind. 

• Maybe I should break out that Sandy Denny anthology and give it a spin.

• An almost desperate desire to bond with someone based upon their taste in music, which is actually significant because all my best friends have scattered across the land and it would do me a world of good to make some new ones. Yet I don't feel that I can do that with anyone who isn't as passionate about music as I am. Maybe I'm cutting myself out with such a requirement, but I can't help it. Music is my comfort zone and up to now I have yet to be introduced to anyone with similar characteristics.

That last one probably holds the key to the entire dream. I would elaborate but I've already spent more time on this post than I had planned.