Monday, January 08, 2007

In Dreams

Dale recently posted about a dream he had, and it got me thinking about my own freak dreams. The most disturbing aspect of Dale's dream, far as I could tell, was a hideous man damaging some DVD packaging. No spiders, no snakes, no unspeakable evil presence bursting through a closed door with a horrible roaring sound that's somewhere between the Exorcist and the Evil Dead.

MizBubs tells me I have far fewer nightmares than I used to. I used to have a pretty wide variety of horrible dreams; fortunately nowadays most of my bad dreams fall into standard cop categories: trying to shoot someone and the gun won't work, chasing someone and can't catch up, etc. From what I"m told I wake pretty violently at times, and I can sit up and move around quite a bit while still asleep, so I've never kept a firearm anywhere within reach of where I sleep.

I still have some bad dreams about f*cking up crime scenes that I'm responsible for, watching evidence get destroyed, but those don't come very often. Another (thank God, infrequent) dream is one where I commit a crime like a bank robbery or a murder and at the moment I'm pulling the trigger or taking the money I am fully aware that I've essentially thrown my life away in that moment.

On the good side, I have some nice dreams about taking road trips and then finding out that I'm really much closer to places I've always wanted to go than I thought I'd be--like, in the dream I'm driving to downstate Illinois to go camping and I suddenly discover that in another 2 or 3 hours I can be in Las Vegas, stuff like that. And at least once or twice a month my dad shows up in my dreams and I get to talk with him, and that's always good. I'd like more visits from my old dogs, though, I wish I could find a way to will that into my dreams.

I'm not even going to talk about sex. No. All I can say is, thank God those are some real good dreams.

Let's listen to some Roy Orbison.

10 comments:

Coaster Punchman said...

I think you should tell us about the sex dreams. I don't dream about murdering people, but I often dream that I am driving a car and all of a sudden become drunk.

Joe said...

Holy shit. I've had that dream too--and sometimes it's just a dream about being exhausted, and realizing I'm trying to drive the car from the passenger seat.

As for your first suggestion, well...this remains a reasonably family-friendly blog. My kids don't need to be any more mortified by my existence than they already are.

Anonymous said...

Admit it-- you wanted to play that song because it's in Blue Velvet...

Joe said...

Johnny, you got me. I was smearing lipstick on myself and repeating "pretty, pretty, pretty" just before posting this.

I loved that song for its sad longing even before Dean Stockwell immortalized it for me in Blue Velvet.

Anonymous said...

I actually discovered Roy in college when I borrowed a friend's copy of "The Very Best of Roy Orbison." I felt like someon had been holding out on me-- "Pretty Woman" is great, but he had so many amazing songs-- Dream Baby, It's Over, I Got a Woman... the list is long.

If you've ever tried to sing "In Dreams", (it's one of my favorites to play on guitar and sing) you realize how incredibly talented Orbison was; the song runs through four octaves. I can hack the last verse out in falsetto only.

Anonymous said...

He passed away very young, and was having a resurgence. I didn't like the Travelling Wilbury's much, but his input was top notch...

Joe said...

Johnny, "Crying" is another one like that. His range was just incredible.

DT, what bugged me about the Traveling Wilburys was Jeff Lynne's production. He had a great collection of unique voices and his production made everything sound like a folk ELO.

Anonymous said...

I have occasional unseen evil forces dreams that wrench me awake too. I can't figure out most of mine although some are more obvious. I love dreaming just the same though, good or bad. It's such a strange thing.

Joe said...

You're right. Usually I'm able to recognize the dream for what it is, while I'm in it, and just go along for the ride. Last night I dreamed about being at a mountainside resort, and going for a haircut at their spa, and being told it would be $425, but they'd give me a discounted rate and cut my hair for $125. MizBubs said to go ahead and treat myself, but I said no. The woman at the desk suggested we go to the bar and have a drink, and then I ended up getting a massage (no happy ending) from a Korean woman in a karaoke lounge.

Anonymous said...

That's some discount! Hilarious and strange, this world of the brain.