In Dreams I Talk To You

The other day (aren't they all other days?) Co-Worker marches up to me and tersely instructs me (might have been wagging a finger at me too, I can't remember), "Stay out of my dreams!" Seems as though the night before, my dream cohort, Angelina Jolie, in the guise of Lara Croft, and I had invaded Co-Worker's dream. Angelina was chasing Co-Worker and me in a rather (to Co-Worker's dreamy subconscious) terrifying scenario. I acted surprised and chagrined, as one should, and did my best to assure Co-Worker that I would commune with my dream-rep and tell it to cool its heels and not mess with my co-workers. But really, I've been in this situation before, people telling me I popped up in their dreams uninvited. Invariably, I hear the sentence, "It was such a weird dream." Hey man, it's news when you have a dull dream, ain't it? You're welcome for the attention. What can I say, my dream doppelganger is a rather mischievous, footloose character. Alas, though, I can't control him, really. Who can? But wouldn't it be great if we (or more to the point, I) could control in whose dreams (and in what manner) we show up?

Off the top of my head (and there's an expression that is woefully in need of some renovation; perhaps a little more badly-needed creativity in this world would be sparked if we started thinking out of the sides of our heads, or from the bottom), here are a few people's dreams I would visit if I only had the power to control my dream envoy: 1.) Angelina Jolie: Since she's found it amusing to drag me along into invading Co-Worker's dream, I think it only fair that I show up regularly in her dreams. I picture me dressed in mismatched dark socks, wrinkled white boxers, and a stained tank undershirt, mildly jumping up and down and chanting, "Brad's a schmuck; look at me!" 2.) Boutrous Boutrous-Gali: I'm a marketing genius advising BB-G (hey, a two-in-one replacement for Robin and Maurice; the Bee Gees live on!) on possible re-branding of his name, the better to cash in on his global icon status. "Well, we could go with Boutrous Squared, but getting that little, elevated 2 can be a problem for a lot of people to wrangle from their word processors. How about Boutrous Etc.? Boutrous Ditto? Boutrous X 2? Kind of hip-hop sounding, that. Bou Bou? Boutrous Reiterated? Work with me here, B." 3.) Newt Gingrich: No words. I just sit there in his dreams, loudly slurping a dripping, never-ending Fudgsicle and picking my ear. 4.) Nipsey Russell: I don't care if he's been dead seven years. Think of the doors this sentence could open: "I was in Nipsey Russell's dream the other night." 5.) Sting: I would keep moving in on him and taunting, "Close enough? Is this close enough? Huh? Closer? Is this good?"

Oh well, a man can dream, can't he? 

In Dreams, I See This Guy?

Do you Coast? I've been Coasting faithfully for five years or so. I'm talking the greatest radio show ever--Coast To Coast AM With George Noory (though I also love George's Saturday night fill-in, Ian Punnett). Aliens, conspiracy theories, Bigfoot, all the 2012 dope you need to know--it's all here, nightly from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. in the East, though my radio station usually plays the previous show's last hour from midnight to 1 a.m. George is a bona fide St. Francis of Assisi of the airwaves, always polite and comforting to all his crazy and/or intelligent listeners and guests. The best.

Anyway, last night I caught last Friday's last hour, the usual Friday "open lines." A lot of people were calling in telling George about their most significant dreams (the sleep movies, as opposed to the one-day -I'll-have-my-own-reality-show type). I was amazed at how vividly some people claim to remember dreams they had when they were little children. Of course I have vivid dreams all the time, but the ones I remember clearly upon waking are few and far between, and they certainly kind of evaporate over time (how many times, like this morning, do I wake in the middle of a particulary lively dream and can almost feel the memory dissolve and crinkle before my mind's eye?). So as I'm listening to people's most memorable dreams last night, as I myself was trying to drift away to dreamland, I started thinking about one particular dream that has stayed with me over the years, one of about five or six that haven't faded away altogether.

It must have been at least twenty years ago. In my dream I was ushered into a series of increasingly more secretive rooms by a few people who were strangers to me. Without knowing what was going on, I knew it was important. Finally I reached the final room. There, very much alive, but obviously on his death bed, lay Lenin, the (in)famous leader of the nascent Soviet Union. Lenin, himself, he of the steely facial hair and the imposing forehead. The purpose of my visit, it soon became clear, was to be allowed the obvious honor of touching the dying legend's forehead. I timidly stuck out my hand and Lenin actually leaned forward a bit off his death pillow, and I touched the famous forehead. End of dream, as far as I can remember.

Now eventually I have come to regard the dream as completely meaningless, the product of some short in my dusty synapses. But there was a time when the dream fascinated me for what it might mean. Could I (who, despite what some of my trueblood Red-state friends in this decidedly Blue county might think, possesses no Communist sympathies except when somebody brings a plate of homemade brownies to work) be destined to grow some cool facial hair, lose even more of my head hair, and end up leading the second great American Revolution, after having the torch passed through that forehead touch? So obsessed with finding the meaning to this dream was I that one crazy night in the French Quarter of New Orleans I decided to blow my last ten bucks not on a very budget tattoo but on a very budget Tarot card reading from one Madame Knew. In her smoky, ill-lit parlor I told Madame Knew all I could remember of the dream. She nodded her head gravely and then began turning over cards, making all sorts of unintelligble noises as each card was revealed. Unfortunately Madame Knew was a struggling single mother of four misbehaving boys; one of them had apparently mixed his baseball card collection in with his mother's Tarot deck, so when the ultimate card was flipped it ended up being a 1979 Topps Bucky Dent card. Madame Knew winced and shuddered then regained her composure and shrugged her shoulders. "Well," she looked at me with daggers in her eyes, "if you're a Red Sox fan you're destined for a life of continual heartbreak. If not, well, enjoy your great smile. End of session." She swept the cards off the table and ran out screaming, "Beauregarde, I'm gonna wring your little neck."

And that's it. When I think of the Lenin dream, as I did last night, I just smile.

Lenin, or as more intelligent, sophisticated people call him...

An American Nightmare

I had a dream.

It was a dream firmly rooted in the twin American nightmares of being called to testify before a Congressional Hearing and being subjected to the power of suggestion by the media elites (I've been spooked for days by this Onion blurb about Microsoft putting a blue squiggly line underneath every word that might be too difficult for the average reader to comprehend understand get). In the McCarthyesque dream the ten most literate bloggers were subpoenaed to appear before a Senate Select Commerce Committee Hearing looking into the perceived pedantism problem on the Internet. I was the sixth blogger to testify. Here is my recollection of a good portion of my testimony (subject to correction once the Congressional Dream Record is published):


Senator A: Why do you blog. sir?

Me: You look at things that are, and say, "Why?" I look at things that are completely random and say, "Why not?"

Senator A: Why did you name your blog spitoutyourgum?

Me: Because, much to my chagrin, expectorateyourgum had already been trademarked by Major League Baseball.

Senator B: What do you make from your writings?

Me: Make, sir?

Senator B: Get, what do you get from your writing efforts?

Me: Same as any writer, I guess. Headaches, paranoia, guilt, a profound yen to chuck it all and move to Zaire. And viruses, a lot of them.

Senator A: Do you know the definition of the word "arcane"?

Me (chuckling): Yeah, the family has a lot of "buffers."

Senator A: I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.

Me: My point, exactly.

Senator B: Moving along, sir. Is it not true that at your place of employment, your so-called "day job," you have unlimited access to dictionaries of obscure and obsolete words?

Me: Not anymore, sir. See my previous post.

Senator A (gavel gavel): We'll have none of your shameless plugs here, sir. Have you no sense of decency?

Me: I'm a blogger, Senator. Nothing shameless about me. I have oodles of shame.

Senator B: What is the aim of your blog?

Me: Somewhere between the middle brow and the slapped knee, sir. On a good day, I'm 50-50.

Senator A (looking through a stack of papers): Am I correct that you once took an entire blog post--and the resultant precious cyber-bodily bandwidth it takes to archive it--to expound on the word desuetude?

Me: That's pronounced des-wi-tood, Senator. Sue's not involved in that word at all, and she resents the insinuation. Anyway, yes, but I don't use that word anymore; in my lexicon it's fallen into desue-- ah, I no longer employ that word. Budget cutbacks and all.

Senator B: What in the hell are you talking about?

Me: Oh, I'm sorry, Senator. Aren't you familiar with that term, "budget cutbacks"? Would you like me to define it for you?

Senator B: Who do you think you are?

Me: Pertaining to that specific question, the counsel in my head advises me that I should respectfully invoke my Constitutional right to take the fifth.

Here the dream suddenly shifted to a liquor store setting where I was buying a bottle of Absolut from a bikini-clad Sigourney Weaver and discussing the word putsch with the ghost of Charlie Weaver. I'll keep the rest of the details to myself. I guess I should stop eating a box of Girl Scout cookies before my mid-morning naps.

I Dream Of Bad Coffee

A quasi- chicken-and-egg quandry has reared its head early this morning. Are dreams the reaction to the mind's wanderings or the foreshadowing of events to come? I'm sure the answer is both, but this morning's dream really has me thinking about what comes first. The dream in question actually woke me up for good this morning. I was in some dumpy diner or service station somewhere, and I poured myself a big cup of coffee from the pot that was sitting there. Well, good God almighty, that was some bad bad coffee. We're talking coughing, retching, spit it out coffee. The thing is, not only did I see myself reacting this way in the dream, I could actually taste that bad bad coffee in my dream (and what an aftertaste--I swear I tasted it after I woke up). The curious thing is that just a couple days ago, for what reason I have no clue, I was wondering about whether the senses of smell and taste "work" in dreams. When I was thinking this stray thought, I couldn't recall any dreams of mine where I could actually smell or taste anything. Makes me kind of wonder about the cosmic shenaningans going on behind all of our backs when I can think about tasting in dreams and sure enough, soon after I'm tasting wretched coffee in my slumber. Thanks for the info, Mr. Sandman, but you could have been a little kinder in your lesson: Guinness, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, or Tropicana freshly squeezed orange juice straight from the carton--next time.

But then I realized, shortly after shaking the bad taste upon waking, that this morning would be one of the few mornings where I'd be making my own coffee instead of buying it somewhere. You have to understand my culinary ineptitude and insecurity: I'd much rather chance a cup of Joe from a coffee pot like the one in my dream than one brewed by my own hands. So maybe my dream was all about forewarning me of the misery to come and getting me up early enough so I could endure and recover from the experience of drinking my own coffee in time for me to get to work this afternoon.

Who knows? Certainly not the on-line community of dream experts. Yes, I even indulged in a little oneirology this morning, which is the scientific study of dreams, though if I had had to guess, I would have said the word means the study of self-administered x-rays. Anyway, the half-dozen or so sites I checked out didn't have much to say about the sense of taste in dreams: a "secondary" sense that infrequently occurs in dreams.

All I know is I've never tasted worse coffee in my life (awake or dreaming) than that coffee I dreamt of this morning. But maybe that's a good thing. This real, "homemade" java I'm presently sipping doesn't taste that bad at all, though I suspect it's the stuff of most people's nightmares.