What-Did-You-Dream Game

Lady Euphoria had a fun post about having to log her dreams as part of a creative assignment. I have hilarious, outrageous, and often inspiring dreams and they go back as far as childhood.

My most vivid memory is of a dream I had when I was around 6 or 7 years old. In the dream I'm riding a large red and white yo-yo (it came up to my chest and was big enough for me to lay flat upon) down a snowy hill near the house where I grew up. When I get to the bottom, it's not winter any more; it's summer and I'm floating over the intersection. In the intersection, spreading out to cover all four of the corners, as an enormous fried egg (sunny side up).

Yes, the dreams are that detailed. And vivid.

My husband doesn't remember his dreams unless they are utterly terrifying, and then the dreams are not as full of color and detail as mine. I suspect the lack of color part might have something to do with his being slightly color blind, but I also think it's because his mind just doesn't take in details the way mine does. (This is not to say he is not a detail-oriented person. He is, but it's limited to the things he does well, such as cooking, woodworking, and archeology. I seem to be all details, all of the time.)

As I've grown older I've had dreams that are more like stories that are trying to work out their own plot lines (no matter how outrageous the people and circumstances involved). This morning I dreamed that I was involved in some kind of espionage / protection plot. I was on top of a series of buildings and we were protecting a woman who was designated as "the prophet." At one point we realized she'd been taken and the general alarm was raised. I was running through a kind of dormitory where young men (soldiers, guards) were sleeping and I was waking them and berating them for being in their beds. Then the prophet appeared (turned out it was my friend Trish) and I realized these guys were sleeping because they'd just gotten back from rescuing her. There's more to it than that, of course. There were large copper or bronze coins with a date of 1639 stamped in them and small cups everywhere that people were using the put these coins in; I was going around and collecting them. At some point I was in a gift shop, which was when I realized that all of this was a sort of historic reenactment, but the kidnapping part had been real as it had been engineered by a group who, for political reasons, didn't approved of what we were doing.

I don't get Freudian about these dreams. They are a kind of adventure in my sleep, like books I wouldn't otherwise have time to read or films I wouldn't otherwise have time to see. The only time I become concerned is when I have dreams that are so frightening that I wake feeling tense and frightened. Those are dreams that I don't care to retell or even to remember because they're not worth dwelling on. About the only information they give me is that I'm upset about something and need to attend to it.

One of these days I'll have time to flesh out some of these dreams into viable stories. Like, when the laundry is done. :)

Another Silly Dream

I don't know where I come up with these dreams I have, but they are kind of funny. And most of the time they seem like stories I'm trying to write while I'm asleep.

So, in the dream I had before I woke this morning, I had stumbled into the filiming of a television commercial. I believe it was for a specific brand of cycling shorts. Honest.

Somehow I'd gotten myself into this commercial that featured (brace yourself) Arnold Schwarzenegger and some other actress (whose name and face were unrecognizable in the dream). Arnold was supposed to be some sort of great bicyclist, but he didn't have the right shorts to wear. I was the character who was to point out that didn't didn't have the right shorts. Then this other actress was supposed to come in (like some sort of rescuing angel) to give him the shorts he needed.

And it was all done in a quasi-opera style.

(Note: Do you remember when there was a cereal commercial that was done in opera style? I'll never forget the actor singing ruefully, "No more Rice Krispies!" to the tune of "Vesta la giubba" -- the well-known aria from Pagliacci.)

But it was being sung in Spanish, not Italian.

When it came to my cue to sing something like, "He has the wrong shorts," I decided to ad lib by adding that, in having the wrong shorts, Arnold also looked very ugly and foolish.

Cut to the end of shooting the commercial. The people who are with me (presumably an agent of some sort) are scared because they think I've upset everyone, but they just want to get me out of there before anyone starts screaming at me.

We are walking down a street and talking about it. I'm defending myself saying that it just came into my head and seemed to be the right thing to do. They're still shaking their heads. (My agent and some guy who I think was my publicist, and some gal who was a kind of friend or hanger-on.)

Next, we stop into a little cafe. The agent comes in grudgingly. This is the sort of cafe where only the stars hang out. They are getting manicures and facials along with their salads. Honest! So, we are standing in the doorway not being noticed until the guy who was my publicist says something to the maitre d' that I'm the person who made this latest commercial very famous.

Oh, all of a sudden we're being seated and the chef is offering me all sorts of amazing food (lobster this and linguini that). I tell him that I just like some soup, but that my friends might like something to eat. This chef goes off in a huff because none of us want his rich food.

While we're sitting there and eating, the actress who was to have been the rescuing angel of that commercial sort of slinks in. Apparently her career is on a downhill slide and my upstaging of her has sealed the deal. She is practically persona non grata at this point.

And then it gets weirder: A kind of wall comes up from the floor to partition off the restaurant so that some actors can attend some kind of anonymous self-help/therapy group. It's a therapy group for actors who are having problems with their careers and/or their self-image and whatever else. And Arnold is one of those attending.

Then I woke up.

I have no idea what it means (if anything at all), but it was fun!