I almost forgot to write about this. The other day I had the weirdest dream I’ve ever had. I always have weird dreams, and my dreams are always in color. I have no idea why, maybe it is all the spicy food I eat, maybe it is payback for touring with the Dead in my teens and early 20’s, but I always have the craziest most vivid dreams. Often times, I have these great dreams and the phone rings, and I get furious at whoever is calling me, because now I will not know the end. I’ll try to ignore the ring and fall back asleep and hope it finishes, but usually I just go into some other weird dream.
At any rate, my dreams are all over the place. One recurring dream is that if I flap my arms hard enough, I can achieve liftoff, and I can usually hover about 30-40 feet above ground with the wind pushing me in a certain direction. Not really flying like Superman, but flying nonetheless. I feel on top of the world. A lot of the times in those dreams I am with people, and I do it just to show off.
Another recurring dream is that I am back with my old unit from the 11th Cav, but instead of deploying our tanks to the Fulda Gap, we are deploying around the small town I live in. And when I say vivid, I mean it. The dreams include me sketching fields of fire of the hills and hollers, setting up kill zones, and really envisioning an attack on my small town, using up to date terrain from where I live and 20 year old memories of the people from my unit. We’re all still 20-21.
Another type of dream I have a lot is very detailed conversations with people I know and like. Usually they are discussions or arguments (not in the sense that we are fighting, but debating). Sometimes they are so realistic and reality based that months later I will be actually talking to the person and have a sort of deja vu and wonder whether or not we had this conversation before, then realize it was just a dream I had a while back.
But the other night was a crazy one. I completely dreamed that I was Usain Bolt, and it was all from the first person perspective. I would look down, and instead of the farmer tan on my left arm from sticking it out the car window when I drive and a whiter right arm, nope- I was all black, with these long muscular arms and long lean fingers. No pudgy pink gnarled meathooks like my real hands. I dreamed that I was running races in the Olympics, and I could smell my own sweat, saw the yellow and green jersey as I looked down to position my feet in the starting blocks as I took my mark, I could feel the pinny and the way the number attached to it stood straight while the rest of it was loose and silky, and I saw the colored shoes. I could feel the adrenaline as I was racing, and looked to my left and right and saw no one there as I finished first. I remember giving the after race press interviews, and hearing a Jamaican accent when I talked, and I could feel my legs tightening and the sweat pouring and my heart thumping while listening to the crowd roar and wincing from the glare of the light attached to the camera the cameraman was holding.
Like I said, it was the most vivid, craziest dream I’ve ever had. I don’t know if I am alone, with this, but I have always had this kind of dream. I kind of feel bad for everyone who doesn’t.
But then again, I am sure one of you with psychological training will pop in to tell me that this just means I am nuts.
NotMax
Only ever having had 3 dreams which I could even vaguely remember in 60+ years, unqualified to say anything other than it sounds like you need to get out and about more.
hhex65
Eckankar!
Mark H
Dude, you’re nuts. I never remember my dreams. I don’t think I’ve had one in years. Probably comes with sleeping in hour and a half blocks.
Wag
Yeah, too many shroom at Dead shows.
Turgidson
I have somewhat recurring dreams that I’m back in high school, behind in all my classes with finals coming up and papers I haven’t written due – in fact, there’s always at least one class that I simply haven’t been attending.
I think this is punishment for having been such an unconscionable slacker at the time. I usually was behind in my classes through lack of effort, and pulled OK grades out at the end. I did at least show up to them. I didn’t start ditching class til I got to college!
These retroactive anxiety dreams (funny, I was never that anxious about being a slacker at the time…only hated it when I got put on the spot in class) are pretty much the only ones I have these days that are vivid enough for me to remember. Pretty lame.
Egilsson
Dunno about the dreams, which are disturbingly vivid and seemingly defy Freudian pop-psychology, but this article is startling.
Short version: A little dog jumps out of the boat; husband jumps out of boat to get dog; wife jumps out of boat to get husband; husband and wife both die; dog is fine, but taken to an animal shelter because his owners died trying to save him.
How awful is that story? Let’s hope that’s not a kill shelter…
David Koch
I dream about Lolo Jones
dance around in your bones
I have no idea what your dream means (and IANAPSYCH) but my husband always used to have the best dreams. like when he was flying a rainbow-sailed ship through the sky and looking down on the earth….
whereas. MY dreams were (and are) completely mundane and easily traceable to whatever stupid media I ingested that day.
I called it the brain, deleting garbage.
(I was totally jealous of my husband’s incredible dreams, however. Count yourself lucky !)
Mnemosyne
IIRC from my, like, 2 psychology classes, you’re probably not nuts, or at least you don’t have schizophrenia. I remember learning that schizophrenics have the most boring dreams in the world. They literally dream about waking up, getting ready for work, working all day, coming home, having dinner, watching TV, and going to bed. I think there was a theory at one point that the schizophrenic brain was getting the waking state and the dreaming states mixed up, so they were essentially dreaming while they were awake and their brains were compensating by having them live “normal” lives in their dreams.
I have no idea if that’s current psychology, but I remember learning it 20 years ago.
Also, too, my most vivid dreams came when I was reading a lot of the “Sandman” comics by Neil Gaiman. I don’t think I was dreaming any differently than usual, but I think I was remembering my dreams more and realizing how truly weird they are.
The Bobs
I have lots of flying dreams. They are a blast. Sometimes I have even had lucid flying dreams where I can direct the action.
I usually start out walking or running and then start to have trouble keeping my feet on the ground, then it’s (or is it “its” today?) lift off.
Your (or is it you’re?) dreams just mean you are crazy John.
Bruce S
“maybe it is payback for touring with the Dead in my teens and early 20’s”
Are these dreams or, more likely, flashbacks ?
Halcyan
Prolly your dreams represent your way of processing your desire to be empathetic without really knowing how. In your dreams you can be extremely empathetic, to not just imagine how it feels but to FEEL how it feels.
The war in your little town – imagining what the same kind of thing would be like if it was the people you know and see every day being subject to the barrage.
Very interesting. I am not sure why you get to have such dynamic dreams. Good question!
Lojasmo
Have not had a flying dream in 25 years. I miss them.
Need to lose some weight.
Mnemosyne
@dance around in your bones:
One theory I remember learning about dreams is that your brain takes in a lot of stimulus during the day that it doesn’t process, and your dream state is your brain sorting through all of that and dumping what it doesn’t need.
That would be why sometimes people are able to solve problems in their dreams — their brain has been processing through all of their thoughts about the problem and is able to come up with a solution when it can put the pieces together without the distractions of waking life.
The Bobs
I might also point out that taking tryptophan supplements will give you more vivid dreams (more serotonin). I enjoy the ride.
General Stuck
10 or 15 years ago, all of my dreams were flying. I didn’t flap my arms of anything like that, just think about it, and up up and away. Don’t know why I stopped having those dreams. Maybe I got well, or something.
TheOtherWA
If you’re nuts, Cole, then so am I. All my dreams are in color, always have been. When I found out some people didn’t dream in color I was stumped. Yours are a bit more vivid, but mine are weird enough that when I’ve tried to tell a friend about them, they always look at me very strangely.
I’ve stopped talking about them. It’s just easier that way.
dance around in your bones
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, great – now I have to worry that I’m schizo because of my mundane dreams ? O_o
j/k
MattR
It was crazy to watch the people of Barbados react to Bolt’s victories. I can only imagine what it was like in Jamaica. And it makes me a bit jealous that we no longer have that kind of mania over the Olympics here.
PS. You know what is not exciting at all? Listening to a sprint over the radio. We got to experience that when our tour guide flipped on the radio to make sure he caught the 200m finals.
(EDIT: There is nothing more annoying than having a good dream interrupted and then futiley attempting to reinsert yourself back into it)
The Bobs
@Mnemosyne: I woke up one time with an incredible idea that was fully formed in my sleep state. When I woke up, I was already working on it; very strange and wonderful. It worked too (for my job).
I should add that two days before that happened, I had ingested a powerful psychoactive substance.
mai naem
So no Romney supporter’s come by and called you a N-Clang! lover yet???
I always remember the MASH episode with the racist soldier who gets a blood transfusion from a black soldier and Alan Alda and Mike Farrell tell him that he’s black from the transfusion.
Okay, my recurring nightmare involves a cartoon kind of the Michelin Man stomping all over me but it feels real. Also too I have another nightmare where I am falling but I never reach the bottom. I heard that you reach the bottom when you die for real but how would somebody know that? Whatevah…
pragmatism
I have the recurring flying/levitating dream too, John. Foe the past 15 years or so. Nt thevarm flapping or having the wind direct me parts though. Sometimes I’m holding these magnet thingies in each hand with arms wide open in a stappian pose. Other times I can fly by relaxing and controlling breathing. It works its way into other dreams as well. I’ll have a dream about skiing or snowboarding and hit a jump and keep levitating. Weird.
Poopyman
I used to have the flying dreams where I just flapped my arms and took off. Flapping harder got me higher, and I could soar for a while before I had to flap some more. But in my dreams everyone had the same power, so it was nothing special.
I’ve noticed all my dreams are in shades of gray, and mostly dark. There’s never any weather in them either, but it always seems like dusk.
I used to have dreams where I needed to run and my legs just. would. not. work. Sometimes I was being chased, and those were the worst. But frustration was the major emotion in those, not fear. God, I hated those.
dance around in your bones
@Mnemosyne
That has always been my completely unscientific and homegrown theory of dreaming. Prolly because of my mundane dreaming.
Once in a while I have a rather terrifying dream (like a recurring one where all my teeth are crumbling and I am spitting them out – ok, I’m sure there is some easy psychoanalytical theory for THAT dream)…..but, for the most part, I can trace my dreams to what I was thinking about/reading about/worrying about during the day.
Dang. I’d love to fly around in a ship with rainbow sails.
hilzoy
All my dreams are in color. All of them are vivid. I hate waking up in the middle of one and not knowing how it will end and wanting to find out: it NEVER works.
I have never dreamt that I was Usain Bolt. But I did dream once, as a small part of a very long and complicated dream, with actual *subplots*, that I saw the feet of God. (He was too big to see any other part. They were enormous feet, with sandals.)
I also once dreamed that I was in a large hall full of people being ranted at by someone who kept talking about how our nation’s lifeblood was being drained away by synthetic a priori propositions! And we had to find them, and ROOT THEM OUT!! (This was plainly modeled on newsreels of Hitler.) I was standing by the wall, feeling really uncomfortable, when suddenly I realized that I *was* a synthetic a priori proposition. (In my dream, I could tell because I was gray and featureless, like a stick of Juicy Fruit gum.) I was suddenly terrified: I had to get out before anyone saw me, because the whole crowd was murderous, and I was, visibly, exactly who they wanted to murder. It was terrifying.
sfinny
My dreams are very vivid, good and bad. Also in different languages. And I often jump from one character to another. Generally it is pretty amusing.
Except for the recurring one where the teddy bears from the space ship run around chopping off everyone’s arms and legs.
Linda Featheringill
John, such a dream illustrates part of yourself that you might not be aware of or perhaps a part that has been neglected lately and needs attention.
In the Bolt dream, Bolt is your animus, your driving force, your ability to make things happen. The executive branch of your self, if you will. [Making plans in a dream would probably represent your anima, your more creative side.]
The most striking thing about this dream is that your subconscious chose a VERY accomplished athlete to play the part of your inner executive. Bolt has speed, he has skill, and he has stamina. If he were your executive, he could certainly make things happen.
The story now comes to a fork in the road and I can’t choose the one that is more accurate. You’ll have to do that.
Scenario #1: If there is something you’ve been sort of wanting to do, to accomplish, or to obtain, your subconscious is telling you to go for it. It is assuring you that you’ll do this wonderful thing quite successfully.
Scenario #2: You might be entering a new chapter in your life. We all go through a series of chapters in our lives. This chapter is likely to characterized more with daring-do and less with inner reflection and contemplation.
Or, scenario #3: All of the above. A part of your Self is ready to be more daring. And, in choosing Bolt as your model, you can be confident that you’ll have the strength and stamina to tackle the Big Task.
I suspect you’ll still be accident prone but you’ll probably accomplish what you need to do anyway.
Enjoy.
Spaghetti Lee
I have awesome dreams. They’re like my no-cost alternative to psychoactive drugs.
General Stuck
Nah, you ain’t nuts. You at least had enough sense to leave the nuthouse before writing loony shit like this
TheMightyTrowel
I have dreams like that – tons of colour, lots of action – in real life i’m a rather sedentary academic. In my dreams I’m kicking ass and taking names. I run around jungles and fight pirates and fly space ships and live the life of a master criminal. It’s amazing. I always feel bad for people who don’t dream like that.
Ash Can
I have those flying dreams too. I move my arms like I’m doing the breast stroke, and I gain altitude. Those are fun dreams.
And if dreaming of being Usain Bolt is a sign of craziness, I hope none of us is sane. :)
nitpicker
Dreamblogging now? NO! Bad blogger! BAD!
Ash Can
@TheMightyTrowel: I bet you’d be a pretty good fiction writer!
TheMightyTrowel
@Ash Can: I dabble in fiction. It’s really hard to stare at a computer in the evening after having stared at a computer all day long.
MattR
My most common recurring dream has me packing up to move out of my apt in Manhattan. I think I am 90% but I soon realize there is still a ton to do and I don’t have the time or supplies necessary. OTOH, all of that might just be unrelated plot and it is really a recurring nightmare about having to go up and down the stairs in that 7th floor walk up.
dance around in your bones
Ok, now I am remembering dreams that persisted for many many months where my house/rooms/everything was FULL of PEOPLE. I’d wake up thinking, TOO MANY PEOPLE!!
I called them my people people people dreams.
Still would rather have the rainbow ship dreams. My husband also had vivid dreams of his mother after she died, talking to him.
I haven’t had one dream of him like that since he died and I feel rather cheated, since we even talked about it beforehand…that whoever went first would at least TRY to contact the other.
Shit.
Ron Beasley
I’m 66 and was in the Army from 1968 to 1971. I have had a recurring dream for 45 years – that something got screwed up and I had to stay in the Army.
Jebediah
You’re not nuts, John Cole. You just have a crush on ABL.
Narcissus
My biggest problem with dreams is that I apparently have bad dream recall. I can remember bits and pieces but nothing really coherent.
I also remember not too long ago I got out of bed to go to the bathroom and the toilet bowl was gone. There was just a hole in the ground. And I went out to the living room and my parents were there and they didn’t think that was at all odd and I was sort of freaking out and then I started to ask them, “Mom, dad, am I dreaming? Is this a dream? Because that’s the only way this makes sense to me.” And my parents were like, “Don’t be silly. You’re awake. You’re not dreaming.”
And then I woke up.
General Stuck
@Ron Beasley:
I had that same nightmare for years after I got out.
Anne Laurie
I’ve had the occasional dream where I was inhabiting a different body — never an identifiable person like Usain Bolt, just someone-not-me — and I always get really frustrated during them, even when I should be enjoying the chance to ‘experience’ skills I don’t have. Possibly because I’m simultaneously thinking that “my dreams are getting mixed up with someone else’s, again“, and it feels like opening my takeout meal and finding they’ve screwed up & given me the wrong order. Even when the replacement turns out to be perfectly edible, apparently my subconscious doesn’t like travelling any more than my waking brain does!
Garbo
Put me in the vivid dream group. I also always remember my dreams, sometimes to the point where they seem like memories until the usual dream-like element appears and I realize there could not have been a giraffe at my sister’s house, etc. I can also reinsert myself into a dream after getting up to pee, which is awesome.
Best recent dream: a genuine Inception dream where I woke up within the dream remembering the dream I had just had previously, and a whole scene which was from a dream months ago but that I remembered within the dream as an actual event. Whoa.
Garbo
@MattR: Oh, I hate that one. And it sticks with me so I get this gnawing feeling during the day that there is a closet/room/apartment I have neglected and must deal with immediately.
sagesource
I don’t remember dreams but I do tend to go into a sort of trance-like state when writing gamer fanfic, my hobby, where I have an incredibly vivid sense of my characters and their setting. This is weird, because when I’m playing the games that these stories are set in, I don’t have much of a feeling of realism at all. One part of my mind is always on a meta vacation, checking out the scene for lighting or physics inaccuracies, wondering how the responses of non-player characters could have been made more complex and realistic, and so on and so forth, as if I were playtesting the game. But when I’m in story mode, away from the computer but seeing the scene with my inner eye, it might as well be real.
joeyess
@John Cole
If you dream in color, you’re one of the lucky few…. try Lucid Dreaming.
I learned the technique by pure dumb luck.
I had a recurring nightmare that scared the living shit out of me for months. I finally got fed up with it and searched for ways to end them without paying some shrink more money than Romney spends on moon-walking horses.
So, I began to write down every single dream I could remember. Immediately after waking, I would reach over and write down what was fresh in my memory. I didn’t care if it made sense, I didn’t try to attach significance to it, I just wrote it down.
Prior to going to sleep, I would repeatedly tell myself (almost a mantra or like counting sheep) that “you’re only dreaming”…..
After about six months of this regime, I ceased having nightmares. I dream in full color, fly at will, and generally control the direction of my dream if it starts to take a bad turn… (I’m only dreaming).
And it works for me.
Haven’t had a nightmare in over 20 years. Pretty cool.
Redshift
I don’t remember a lot of my dreams; I wish I did. I remember pretty often that I’ve had a dream, but more often than not most of the content has slipped away.
I didn’t know if I dreamed in color or not for a long time. I would have dreams where I knew what color things were, but I didn’t remember actually seeing the color. Then I had a dream where there was a fire that was a really vivid orange. I get bits like that occasionally, but not much. I wonder if “dreaming in color” is one of those things that you either have or you don’t (in which case I’ve always had it, and I just don’t remember it sometimes), or if you can be along a range from none to vivid.
(I seem to remember reading about a study that more people report dreaming in color since the advent of color TV, but I don’t know how well-established that is.)
In my best flying dream, I could fly like a kite — just lean into the wind and float up. It’s been too long.
suzanne
I remember my dreams very, very rarely. The form of epilepsy I have causes seizures only in my sleep during dreaming, and before I was on medication to stop them, my waking and dreaming states would be crossed. For about a week after a seizure, everything I saw while I was awake (and I mean EVERYTHING, down to rocks and bushes) would trigger a horrible sense of deja vu, and I would have the sensation that I had seen those things before in my dreams. Then, after a week, that horrible feeling would just fade away.
Very happy to have medication that is effective.
Poopyman
Title made me dig this out of the archives from ’68.
dead existentialist
I dream of electric sheep . . . . Er, no I don’t. That was someone else.
@Ash Can: That’s how I fly, too.
General Stuck
Sociopaths
Mnemosyne
@dance around in your bones:
I used to have lots of dreams about my teeth falling out, but then I got a job with dental insurance. Now I hardly ever have them.
My big recurring dream was based on “Night of the Living Dead” and my friends and I were being overrun by zombies. Once I figured out that it was a stress dream, I stopped having it as often (I guess my brain didn’t think it was as useful anymore once I figured it out).
My most common recurring dream right now is dreaming that I’m in a house or apartment that has lots and lots of hidden rooms on the inside. I’m not usually doing anything extraordinary, just walking through doors and finding more rooms on the other side that are usually very nicely furnished and comfortable.
Probably means I should go back into therapy or something. ;-)
Redshift
Back when I was going to more SF conventions, I used to have a recurring dream hotel. The dreams weren’t the same, but the setting was. It didn’t necessarily look the same (except for this one long escalator that was almost always there), but I knew it was the same place.
Craig
Answer: Your dreams, your fantasy team, the weird sex things that you’re into.
Question: What are three things about yourself that no one in the entire world gives a flying fuck about?
Valdivia
I used to have a recurring elevator dream–malfunctioning elevator always going up, not stopping at the floor I wanted but moving on to a very high floor. I haven’t had one in a year or so.
I too have pretty vivid dreams, and can usually recall them pretty clearly for a few hours and more if I write them down.
Narcissus
@Mnemosyne: I used to frequently have dreams where I was in a familiar place that I’d been in thousands of times and then suddenly discovered a new room, or a new hallway, or a new road or whatever. It freaked me out.
A recurring example was that I frequently discovered a second, hidden food court at the mall.
FormerSwingVoter
…Huh.
I only remember 2-4 dreams a year, and even then the memories fade very rapidly after I wake up. Within 15 minutes after waking up, I’ll only remember the last couple minutes (or “minutes”) of the dream.
The weird thing is, they’re nearly always some form of lucid dream. And weirder, they almost always degenerate into a bad dream. I will either realize that I’m in a dream or realize that anything I think happens, and will do something like this:
“I can do anything I can think of! I’ll think of flying!” *FWOOSH Superman-style* “Now I just need to make sure I don’t think about crashing!” *CRASH and wake-up*
Mnemosyne
@joeyess:
Hmm. I may be a lucid dreamer, because it’s pretty rare for me to have a nightmare that I can’t wake myself up from. I’ve had a couple of nasty ones where I was able to wake up, but the nightmare would start up again every time I tried to fall back asleep even though I was consciously redirecting the plot. It took two or three tries before I was able to redirect it and fall back asleep.
One weird thing I have is that sometimes I dream that I can’t fall asleep, but realize once I wake up that I was dreaming I had insomnia. That’s always a bizarre one.
MattR
@Craig: Can I tell you about my recurring nightmare that the wetsuits I ordered won’t arrive in time for my fantasy draft on Friday? I have the dildo already, but without the wetsuits it just seems out of place.
? Martin
I never remember dreams either. I might remember a nightmare, but that only happens every 5-10 years.
My wife remembers every dream and will often tell me all about them in the morning. I listen, but I’m pretty sure I’ve lost the ability to suppress the ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about’ look on my face. I just can’t relate. I have nothing to share or contribute. Well, unless she was dreaming about having sex. Then things get more interesting.
Ed Dane defender of Donuts
You can look up the meanings behind each here >.>
http://www.dreammoods.com/
I get the same behind in school dreams as another poster further up the thread.
For John Cole his Olympic athlete dream symbolizes, well the above website says
“Olympics
To dream that you are competing in the Olympics symbolizes the spirit of competition. You need to go after what you want. Alternatively, the Olympics represent unity. It may be telling you that despite our differences and disagreements, we can all still come together. You need to apply this ideology to some aspect of your waking life. A more direct interpretation may represent your aspirations of being an Olympian athlete.”
srv
… Wait. You TOURED with The Dead?
And this fucker always asks “Why do you think I should write a book?”
I’m just fucking glad the nightmares about discovering in May that an extra class I registered for wasn’t dropped ended in my 30’s. First World Problems.
Craig
@MattR: If you’re not wearing two wetsuits, you might as well not be wearing any wetsuits at all, that’s what I always say.
Nom de Plume
@Turgidson:
Yep, that’s me. There’s also the occasional twist in which I am my current age (late 40s) doing all of the above, and wondering to myself just when all these teenagers are going to notice how old I am.
The bit about having a class where I have not shown up, and how the hell will I ever explain that–that’s a particularly common one, and I can only think it has to do with general anxiety about ill-preparedness.
Mnemosyne
@Valdivia:
Ugh, I was having some weird elevator dreams for a while. Not malfunctioning exactly, but scary elevators that were shaky and moving way too fast that I was convinced were going to kill me at any moment.
And the elevators weren’t usually the main plot of the dream — it was more that, every time I went into an elevator in a dream, it was a freaky elevator that was trying to kill me. But then I would get out and the main plot of the dream would continue.
Ash Can
@dance around in your bones: I’ve had “contact” dreams like that. It’s weird; they just seem to appear out of the blue, on their own. Maybe yours will too, some day. I don’t know.
dance around in your bones
@Craig: Piss off.
@Mnemosyne: I had these dreams even when I HAD dental insurance. Sometimes it was a car accident where I bashed my mouth into the steering wheel; sometimes it was just a general crumbling and spitting out of teeth.
I think I have read that this is a fairly common dream (Crickey).
Ok, went to the googly machine:
Fuck Freud. Everything was about the pe.nis for him.
CW in LA
@MattR: Okay, so at least a couple of other people have packing up and moving dreams. I have them a lot, and I hate ’em. I think they’re a way of processing stress.
@Narcissus: On the other hand, I’ll occasionally have these new room dreams, but those usually feel good. I suppose if they were part of the moving dreams, though, that would suck.
murakami
I once had a dream vaguely similar to Cole’s hometown assault. In 2010, I dreamed of waking up one morning, finding the Internet completely down so, out of boredom, I turned on the telly where a blonde talking-head said: “We will now replay the General’s statement” and then some General, with a medal-encrusted chest, came on and said “The tyrant is dead and Biden will soon be captured. With the removal of the traitors, Congress will be reconvened shortly and will work diligently to safeguard our God-given constitutional system. Freedom will once again return to America. We expect this national emergency to be concluded in just a few short weeks.” The video faded to an image of the White House on fire. Every channel on the cable system was showing the same footage.
My dreams are often vivid but not usually quite so concrete.
Ash Can
And everybody who’s had that finals-are-coming-up-and-I-haven’t-even-gone-to-the-damned-class-once dream, REPRESENT YO.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Last time I had a nightmare was when I was on Zooloft. I literally dreamed I could not breathe and woke up almost unable to. Needless to say that regime ended pretty damn fast. Also turned out I didn’t have depression, I was just a stressed out college kid.
sfinny
@Ash Can: YO! And the one where I can’t find my locker or the combination.
MattR
@CW in LA: I am a major league procrastinator so I alsways assume it represents anxiety over some task that I have been putting off.
@Yutsano: When I was a kid, I dreamed I was suffocating only to wake up with the cat sleeping on my chest.
srv
@joeyess: You know, I did this lucid dreaming stuff. The problem is, its too real. I was driving a Shelby Cobra down Hwy 1 and the suspension was just too soft. And the noise wasn’t right. So I pull over, pull the hood pins, open it up, and there’s a 302 under the hood…
Then I wake up all pissed off. I thought this stuff was supposed to make you happy…
Valdivia
@Mnemosyne:
The funny thing is that I wasnt frightened though after a few I would say oh it’s that dream again mid dream. At least they weren’t kill me elevators. Those would be more like nightmares. Hope you don’t have them again!
Redshift
@Narcissus: So you guys have all read or seen Coraline, right?
srv
@Ash Can: Somebody needs to do a study on this. I could get it if I just f’d off for all my finals, but I can’t remember ever not sweating bullets.
dance around in your bones
@Ash Can:
Thanks, I kinda hope so. Mostly my dreams of him have to do with how he looked when he was dead, so…………not so nice.
Perhaps that will change some day.
The day he died some nutball neighbor tola me about a friend of hers who had recently died? and she set up a kind of shrine with photos and candles and etc to him? She said she was ‘meditating’ on him one day and his photo shot blue energy balls (I am am NOT making this up) into her throat.
I thought (but didn’t say) if my husband did that to me I would kill him all over again (not that I killed him in the first place).
Jehosaphat.
Redshift
@MattR:
A friend of mine tells the story of how he was dreaming that he couldn’t breathe because the cat was sleeping on his face, and he woke up to find that he couldn’t breathe because the cat was sleeping on his face.
Mark S.
@Ash Can:
That brings up this classic.
I had one of those dreams where the class was literally in Greek and everyone understood what was going on except me. And there was another one where I had 5 research papers due in a week and I hadn’t started any of them.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I have some vivid ass dreams as well. I love remembering and thinking about all the ones I’ve had for 30+ years. When people tell me they can’t remember their dreams I feel bad for them. They are missing out on some crazy ass shit.
CW in LA
@Nom de Plume: I’ve had those for a long time. But lately the twist is that I have the high school teaching job I actually have, but then it turns out there are classes I was supposed to be taking, too.
I’m pretty sure my dreams are in color, for what it’s worth.
Mnemosyne
@Ash Can:
Me! Right now, I blame my boss, who lately seems to have a new rush deadline for me every goddamned day.
@Yutsano:
Yikes! Sounds like you had a panic attack that you incorporated into your dream. They had me on Wellbutrin, which is a non-serotonin antidepressant and I never had trouble with it. My dreams may have been slightly more vivid on it (which is a common side effect), but I can’t really remember.
@Redshift:
I’ve seen Coraline, and a lot of Gaiman’s stuff is about dreams. There are some interesting ones in American Gods and, of course, the aforementioned Sandman series is all about Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams.
MattR
@Ash Can: Not always a final exam. Sometimes it is a paper or a project that is due.
I have not had a nightmare in a while (knock on wood). My bigger problem is that I have a dream where I get really worked up and pissed off over something trivial and then I wake up in an angry funk and I can’t remember why.
@Redshift: That is funny. I was staying with my aunt who was cat-sitting so my brain was not used to the concept of a cat being present and even the deep parts of my subconscious could not make the connection.
Morbo
I have that one too, but not with flapping, just a bunch of air jumps like geppou, here.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Last night I dreamt I had insomnia, I couldn’t wake up.
-Steven Wright
MattR
@Mnemosyne: I just finished Good Omens and want to try out more Gaiman. Where do you suggest I start?
Semi-related, I believe it was someone here who recommended Ready Player One. I just finished that as well and really enjoyed it. It was definitely not impressive writing, but it was a good story based on a really good concept and I’ve found myself randomly thinking about life in that world. I am interested in seeing how they turn it into a movie and how they incorporate 3D.
YellowJournalism
I remember dreams years and years after. I still remember vividly a dream about my friend turning into a slime monster. I had that dream when I was four years old.
FormerSwingVoter
@Ash Can: YO!
Also, I occasionally dream in the third person, as if I’m watching a movie of myself, but that’s only happened a few times in my life. Anyone else?
DaddyJ
Never had that type of Being John Malkovich/Usain Bolt dream; sounds like a hoot. Used to have a lot of flying dreams, though. What I thought was odd about them — and John’s flying dreams share this — is that the magical flying ability requires effort. Instead of arm flapping, my flying dreams let me leap a block or two in Hulk-like bounds. Kind of tricky, actually, because one had to watch out for trees, power-lines, picket fences, dogs in back yards, etc. Getting up enough steam to clear a three-story office building took a lot of running and usually resulted in a spectacular crash in an alley. I guess the physicality of it is what makes it seem so real.
Occasionally my flying dreams would “degrade” — as the dream progressed, the ability would diminish, and the more conscious the effort, the shallower the flight. These sorts of dreams make you wake up sad.
That sadness is perfectly captured in a great (and increasingly politically prescient) SF book that I would guess was largely inspired by the author’s flying dreams: T.M. Disch’s On Wings of Song.
Mnemosyne
@dance around in your bones:
Given the kind of dreams you say you have, I would guess that your “contact” dreams would be of a very ordinary day with the two of you having breakfast or hanging out or whatever.
I’ve only had a couple of “contact” dreams, but weirdly one of them was with someone I’d never actually met — after Vincent Price died, I had a very vivid dream where we were at the same garden party and someone introduced us and I told him what a big fan I was. I swear I felt him touch my arm when we shook hands in the dream … but then I discovered a few months later that my cat would poke me in the arm when I was asleep to see if I was awake enough to play, so it was probably him and not Vincent Price. :-)
piratedan
strange… I dream of walking up to Mitch McConnel and punching him square in the face and screaming at him to “shut the fuck up and quit being a dick” and then telling Rush Limbaugh that not only is he fired, he’s also under federal indictment. Then the spell that has the media enthralled with all things Republican is broken and we can start talking about shit that matters versus what would Jesus do if he had a uterus.
Paul W.
I remember a LOT of my dreams. Dreams of flying, dreams of killing people dreams of my parents being killed, save,d of me as a ninja turtle, of being a girl (rare), as a ninja or even as a demi-god who could have people around me do whatever I want and do whatever I wan without consequence.
I also used to have a lot of dreams about falling madly in love with girls who I met, I mean…. I woke up thinking about them and they still haunt me today kind of things. And I know they’re not real!!
But…. I have never ever, EVER had dreams of being a black man. And never ever being as spectacular as a real life Olympian. That’s quite a dream, and I’ve done almost everything in mine. Kudos Mr. Cole.
Spaghetti Lee
@piratedan:
That’s no dream, that’s a premonition!
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (formerly IrishGirl)
@FormerSwingVoter: Yeah I do the third person too…I am usually someone else though.
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
If you’re not opposed to comic books/graphic novels, I would try out the Sandman series — they’re all available in paperback. Technically, “Preludes and Nocturnes” is the first volume, but it took him several issues to figure out what he wanted to do with the character, so you may want to try “The Doll’s House” first and then go back to the first one if you like it.
If you want to stick with word-based books, I’d go for American Gods. Personally, I hated Neverwhere, but other people love it, so YMMV.
@FormerSwingVoter:
I’ve done that before but, even weirder, it’s usually because I am someone else in the dream, so it makes sense to me that I’m in the dream and also watching it from the outside.
Spaghetti Lee
One of my odder and more vivid dreams was listening to a prog rock song by Rush or Yes that was just blowing my mind, it was so amazing (I like those bands in real life too, so not THAT farfetched). And I “knew” in my dream that I owned the album and I just needed to write the name of the song down or something. When I woke up I started looking for it in my music library and couldn’t find it. I don’t think it hit me for at least 3 days that it wasn’t a real song.
Paul W.
Sorry to not have made my edit, but I always dream in color. I didn’t know you couldn’t… does that mean anything or are we both just misunderstanding the norm of dreaming?
MattR
@Mnemosyne: Thanks. I’ll probably give the Sandman series a shot next time I buy a batch fo books.
dance around in your bones
@Mnemosyne:
Oh my gawd, I MET Vincent Price! I sold him an oriental carpet at a trade show, and it was only when he wrote out his check and I looked at the name that I realized he was THE Vincent Price.
I’m sure I said something stupid at that point, I was so flabbergasted.
Mnemosyne
@dance around in your bones:
He has a whole art museum named after him now — he donated a chunk of his collection to East Los Angeles College and did a lot of work with them while he was alive, and they were eventually able to use that as a base for an entire museum.
I haven’t been down there yet, but some of my coworkers have and they say it’s very nice.
dance around in your bones
@Mnemosyne:
He was a very gracious and humble man – unlike some other Hollywood types I dealt with.
Ash Can
@dance around in your bones: You have so many cool stories that it makes me wonder if you’re actually Sarah Proud and Tall. On second thought, I don’t think so — if you were SPT, you would have told some tale of doing lines of coke with Price in the service garage of the convention center, then banging him in his limo on the way out to the Hotel del Coronado to catch the late-night performance of Japan’s premiere drag Patsy Cline impersonator.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (formerly IrishGirl)
Cole, if you’re crazy, then so am I. I dream like you all the time. I have these awesome flying dreams once in a blue moon…and I am talking superman flying. It feels so awesome I can’t even describe it. I have dreamed that I was someone else but no one famous. My dreams are so vivid that a bad one will color my mood for many hours after I wake up. Once I dreamt that someone broke into my house, tied me to a chair and killed my dog…there was blood everywhere. I was so pissed off that I got loose, busted up the chair and used it as a weapon to basically beat the intruder to death. I woke up crying and so angry. Another time I dreamt that I was a tall man in Highland garb…the long white sark, traditional wrap around and over the shoulder kilt, long wool socks, even a sporran made from the hide of a badger. I could feel the weight of the brooch that held my kilt on my shoulder, feel the scratchiness of the socks on my calves, and the cloth of the long shirt on my bare thighs. I had a large heavy broadsword in my hands and I was standing on top of a hill on a very dark night. There were men coming at me from all sides, British lobsterbacks. I killed a few and I could not only smell the blood, I could taste it in the air. Then the wind began to blow and a really loud deep voice rang out and said, “Is this hill you want to die on?”. It startled me and I kid you not, my spirit or some version of me rose up in the air and departed the Celt’s body. But he was still alive and he looked up at me confused and afraid. I floated away and then woke up.
I have many, many more I could share but I am afraid I would find people at my door with the tiny little white coats without armholes come morning. I try to write my dreams down, you should too. I think they are wonderful gifts.
Jibeaux
@MattR: I like Neverwhere. I like Merican Gods too, but it’s much longer. I also like his short stories.
I’m jealous of you people with your flying and sprinting dreams. I have dreams that, if I think about them when I first wake up, I can remember, but they’re incredibly boring. Like that I went out to eat and somebody from my high school turned out to be the chef or some stupid shit like that. I may be a boring person.
JustAnotherBob
Speaking of strange dreams…
“Hitler learns about Todd Akin staying in the race.”
It’s a Utoob. And it showed up on Google’s news feed….
hamletta
I still remember some dreams I had when I was 6. Like the one where I was a thief, but instead of a flying carpet, I had a flying plastic laundry basket. All my ill-gotten trinkets suddenly grew to enormous proportions, and then I woke up.
I don’t know if it was before or after the one I had where I had a long conversation with the aliens, and my dad had to come wake me up, because our conversation was keeping him up.
The most memorable dream I had recently was a coupla years ago where I was deeply in love with some dude, and we were going to get married, and I went to his house, and it was late fall, and the ground was covered with slimy oak leaves and I went to his house with some friends because he was probably in some kind of wacky militia and he was and I ducked into a drainage ditch but he found me and shot me.
I woke up before I died, because duh, if you die in your dream, you’re dead. But I was haunted for days, and I couldn’t tell anyone about it.
And why is it, when I’m bangin’ George Clooney—or Benjamin Disraeli, for that matter—I always get woken up before the alarm goes off?
dance around in your bones
@Ash Can:
I have not even begun to tell my stories – I have been rather shy, shall we say, on the intertubes.
Since my husband died I kinda don’t give a fuck anymore.
Have I told you I had a torrid affair with the one guy who filmed an interview with Osama bin Laden back in the day?
Oh no, I’ve said too much….I haven’t said enough…
also, I have done my share of cocaina in my time…it usually involved seeing the sun come up way too early and regretting it pretty much.
Oh wait! That reminds me of when my husband went fishing in Baja, woke me up at 3am and asked me if I had a recipe for squat. Squat, sez I? Yeah, he said, cuz that’s all we’re going to catch.
Our fishing trips usually involved mass quantities of tequila, Jack and coke (not THAT kind) and most of the participants were dead asleep at fish-catching time except me and my husband. We were troopers.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (formerly IrishGirl)
@joeyess: I used to have some real doozies too and taught myself how to take control of them too. You know the one everyone has had at least once, someone or something is chasing you and you just keep running away…they never really catch you but you never runfast enough to get away. My lucid dreaming breakthrough came during that kind of dream. I told myself to get a grip, stop running and turn around. I did and the shadow person chasing me stopped and then disappeared. Haven’t had a “being chased” dream in decades.
RadioOne
my lone recurring dream/nightmare is me in college trying to finish my graduate thesis on time (which in my dreams, never happens because of weird, impossible standards from academic authority).
Redshift
@Jibeaux: Yeah, Fragile Things is a collection of many wonderful short stories. I liked American Gods a lot, and I liked Neverwhere, though it’s obviously not as good as some later work. I didn’t really care for Stardust. It seemed like it was stretched out longer than it needed to be. Good Omens is wonderful, too.
I read most of Sandman as it was published (and loved it); I haven’t gone back to it since. I should probably re-read it.
Kane
Dreams of flight are generally interpreted with feelings of being in control. Being around people and wanting to show off your skills of flight could mean that you want others to see you as being in a position of control. Having to flap your arms hard enough to take and sustain flight could be interpreted with feelings that you’re finding it harder to maintain control.
Dreams of being someone else or seeing through the eyes of someone else are generally interpreted with feelings that there is an area in your life where you’re not being completely honest with yourself or with others, and you feel powerless to change that dynamic. Dreaming that you are Usain Bolt could also mean that you simply admire qualities in him that you wish that you possessed.
Who knows? But it’s fun to play with dreams.
Ash Can
@dance around in your bones: Sweet. :)
PS: If you write a book, especially if it’s a memoir, I promise I’ll buy it.
Anne Laurie
@DaddyJ:
My childhood flying dreams involved using actual wings, and I’d wake up with sore chest & thigh muscles from the dream-effort of using them. At some point during puberty, I “discovered” that I could dream-project lovely colored energy sheets from the base of my skull to my wrists and down to my ankles, and manipulate them with my brain instead of my muscles. I was sooo thrilled! Funny thing was, none of this was ‘deliberate’; my childhood wing-dreams just morphed into adolescent energy-floating dreams, and it was just one more sign of puberty, nothing I had any control over…
hamletta
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ (formerly IrishGirl): The chasing thing reminds me of Night Of the Hunter. There are many, many reasons to love that movie, but the scene where the children just barely get away from Robert Mitchum is like one of those chasing dreams.
He chases them like yer dad playing Monster, so he loses them, but he’s still terrifying.
SatanicPanic
One time I dreamt I was listening to a song and I woke up and I could play it. My band played that song for a while.
Sometimes if I don’t get laid for a while I have some vivid sex dreams. It’s almost worth it to go without sex for a while just to have them.
Or if I don’t sleep well for a few days I have very cinematic dreams but I can rarely remember them. I should start writing them down.
And occasionally I have those dreams where I think I’m awake but I’m paralyzed. Those are very unnerving.
scav
@Mnemosyne: any elevator in my dreams is a freaky one. Doors don’t work, they move sideways, leave the building, fly off over trees, have porch swings in them that you have to throw yourself onto as they zoom by, must be my inner frustrated roller coaster designer trying to bust out. I also somehow re-use imaginary places, sometimes months later. Mid-dream and I’m thinking, oh, here I am again, drat, I know this part.
CW in LA
@SatanicPanic: Back in grad school, when the missus was studying overseas, I’d occasionally have really vivid sex dreams from which I’d wake up to find myself humping the mattress. Talk about a let-down.
I understand the pseudo-Freudian analysis is that all dreams are about sex, except the sex dreams are about something else. But these sex dreams sure seemed to be about sex.
The Other Chuck
I’ve heard all kinds of goofy old wives tales about dreams … color and supposed lack thereof, meanings, the reason we dream, all that nonsense. About the only one of those that seems to hold true for me is that I can’t read in a dream, not more than single words on a sign anyway. I guess the necessary parts of the brain just don’t really work when asleep.
Several times I’ve had dreams where near the end, and when I wake up right afterward, I feel like I’ve dreamt a truly heroic amazing adventure that went on forever, an utterly epic story for the ages … but I can’t remember a single moment of it.
TheMightyTrowel
@scav: I have that with airplanes.I dream about mass transit (planes, buses, trains, ships) a lot and the airplane dreams (well, also the train station ones) are always the weirdest.
SatanicPanic
@CW in LA: Haha, that happened to me once. I woke up because my head was feeling numb, I think I was cutting off circulation by having it buried in my pillow. And uh, yeah, I highly doubt those dreams are anything but a product of being horny.
dance around in your bones
@Ash Can:
I cannot tell you how many times I have been urged to write my memoirs – I kinda relied on my husband for his total recall of all things.
My kid asked me for years to write stuff down, and (for various ….uhhhh. legal reasons…I resisted. Now my husband is gone and if I ever write about our life together I’m sure I will get many things wrong.
However, I’m sure it would be entertaining at the very least.
I’mma gonna get on it any day now. heh.
Mike G
Eating very salty or spicy food at dinnertime gives me very vivid dreams.
I have lots of dreams about being back in high school, or at work, naked (feelings of vulnerability).
Also lots of frustrating dreams of trying to do something or go somewhere and endless delays and obstacles get in the way.
CW in LA
@dance around in your bones: Make it into a novel. Then it doesn’t matter if the details are off a bit.
asiangrrlMN
@Mnemosyne: Cosign the Sandman series. I love Neil Gaiman so hard.
Cole, I once dreamed about a Balloon Juice party in your living room. No, I hadn’t seen a picture of your living room before that, but I KNEW in my dream it was your living room.
Mostly, though, my dreams are filled with death, mayhem, and destruction. Me and Morpheus don’t get along very well.
ETA: These days, my dreams are more anxiety dreams than death dreams. I suppose that’s an improvement.
Ruckus
John your dreams sound pretty cool. Well maybe not the war dreams.
I’ve gone through periods in my life when I can’t remember having dreams or what was in them if I did to having very vivid dreams many nights in a row. Have never been able to figure out any correlation with sleep pattern, food, drink, whatever. As I have gotten older the frequency of the vivid dreams has lessened but as someone up thread pointed out this may be due to sleeping in much shorter blocks of time. About the longest I can sleep now is 1 1/2 hr but many nights the cycle is closer to 20 min at a time.
And no I don’t think you are nuts because of your dreams. But then I didn’t stay in a holiday inn last night either.
dance around in your bones
@CW in LA: I’m sure that would be the wiser (and not so incriminating) path.
I’m just so paranoid about giving too much away. I guess I oughta get over it.
Unless it lands me in a prison for a bazillion years, which would suck. >@[email protected]<
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Baby steps hon. Baby steps. Or moar of teh sexytime.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Or no sleep at all. Though, I could do with teh sexytime. ::sigh::
Donald G
I almost always have vivid dreams and in color (and once as a kid, in animation), and often involve kafka-esque paranoia.
Looking back over my notes, in recent years, I’ve had deams involving Winnie the Pooh and Piglet with the voices of Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach,a Doctor Who Christmas special that teams up David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor with the Sarah Jane Adventures’ Clyde Langer, but then switches Tennant out with Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor for the bulk of the adventure before switching back, but my favorite dream notation is for a dream from October 2010, which reads:
In that one, I was a sheriff’s deputy in the midst of a zombie outbreak and that line was delivered by my partner in law enforcement, portrayed by a former high school classmate who in real-life went on to become a musician and member of the band, 247-Spyz. Anyway, that one has stuck with me.
Platonicspoof
At the very least it means you’re fortunate to remember, and therefore have access to, thoughts and imagery most of us forget (don’t link to).
I can’t cite references since my books are packed up for moving, but just as your conscious words, connotations and other representations are unique to you, so are the unconscious representations. If you have the time and interest, one technique is to record many dreams, record any associations that pop into your mind while recording the dream images, and then over time look for the patterns you were exploring while dreaming.
Do you experience hypnopompic states? Might be more useful for synthesis of new representations. Many of my own dreams are easily identified as just rehashing the previous couple of days of information without creating anything new.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
I used to have the most hyper-realistic scarily vivid dreams when I was on a certain p1LL from the d0ct0r. I still have them from time to time. Here’s a recent one:
“Oddest dream in a long time. I was in a dance studio with a group. All wearing space suits without helmets but with wide black suspenders. We were practicing a pantomime dance representing the history of transportation. Walking, horse riding, bicycling, railroad trains, automobiles, etc. All in unison. Extremely peculiar. I’m sure it has no meaning and is due to the excess of chemical fumes at work that’s now giving me a crushing headache.”
I also have ‘flying’ dreams but they’re more like skimming. I’m standing and I can ‘surf’ with my feet a fraction of an inch above the ground, moving forward without friction and without moving my feet. I have had those all my life.
Patricia Kayden
As someone of Jamaican descent, I love your dream. Perhaps it means that a visit to Jamaica is in order so that you can relax and rewind. And race along the beaches. And speak with a fake Jamaican accent.
I’m too exhausted to dream or at least to have such vivid dreams that I can recall them with any specifity. I’m a little envious of you.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
Some times my dreams ‘bleed over’ into waking life for a little while after I wake up. Some time ago I woke up recalling a time back in the ’80s when I had an adventure. I was out walking at night and came to a shed. Inside was a small airplane. I got the plane out, started the engine and took it for a short joyride, then put it away again. The recollection of the walk and of piloting the plane is very realistic. When I got around in the morning I went to Google Maps to see if there was an aerial photo of the runway and shed from that event. I knew just where to look. But there was no airstrip there. Just a very old grain elevator and a large railroad yard. No airstrip, and there never had been one there. Then I realized that it had been a dream because I would NEVER steal an airplane and can’t fly one. I must have just had the dream in response to hearing a plane while asleep. But I still have the memory and it ‘feels’ exactly like a recollection from 30+ years ago. Just like things that really did happen then. It was kind of spooky to get a false memory accidentally implanted in my head.
bob h
It sounds like you are in a better frame of mind than you were awhile back when you were definitely down.
Montarvillois
There are 2 revelations from people that bore me to death. Their dreams and what they would do with a mega lottery win.
hep kitty
I don’t dream anymore. I just realized that a few weeks ago. I think it’s the meds. But I used to have some bad ones, so I guess it’s for the best.
Well, I guess I DO dream, we all do, but if I do, I have no memory of it.
dewzke
The Best College Essay Ever!
Unfortunately, it’s not mine…..
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently.
Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400.
My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me. I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations with the CIA. I found Waldo.
I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid.
On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prize-winning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin.
I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis, but I have yet to go to college.
/just a favorite of mine…had to share
Lurking Canadian
But then again, I am sure one of you with psychological training will pop in to tell me that this just means I am nuts.
Relax. Sometimes a sprinter is just a cigar.
Lavocat
Hate to say it, dude, but you’re normal.
That is, unless your mother appeared as some ultra-sexy vixen. In which case you’re nuts.
Some people are blessed with amazingly vivid dreams. I find that my own dreams are most vivid and memorable when I am under stress. And yet, the vivid dreams come even in stress-free moments.
Isn’t it wonderful how the brain plays with itself?
Omnes Omnibus
@Turgidson:
I have that one occasionally, but it takes place in either college or law school.
Comrade Mary
I dreamed I saw Prince Harry playing strip billiards in Vegas last night.
Oh, wait …
(Link goes to 1) Nekkidness and 2) The HuffPo. You have been warned.)
dance around in your bones
@dewzke:
That whole essay was hysterical, but for some reason “I breed prize-winning clams” made me shake with (trying to be silent) laughter (since the whole household is asleep and I am not).
Was that essay something you had the pleasure to grade? If so,I hope you gave it a triple A plus plus ;)
Usain Bolt
I will try to dream tonight that I’m you. Symmetry demands it.
Elizabelle
@dewzke:
My beer, when I drink? Dos Equis.
Stay thirsty, my friends.
Chris
Its time for J Cole to start his tumblr, FuckYeahTanks!
BobS
Not to split hairs, but since the early 70s I’ve been to more Grateful Dead shows than I can count. The only musicians I remember “touring” with them were the NRPS, who were essentially a Dead offshoot. However, I do remember a collection of freaks who would follow their tours from city to city, most visibly in the 80s-90s.
You know, the politics you embraced in the early years of your blog was kind of the antithesis of the kind of America the Dead wanted to see, similar to how Paul Ryan or Chris Christie don’t reflect the message of Rage Against the Machine or Bruce Springsteen. How did you go from Deadhead to Bush enthusiast (your return from the dark side was documented in the later years of the blog)?
NancyDarling
Cole, when I was a kid I had frequent dreams of flying. I didn’t flap my arms though. I wish I could dream it again. I also had frequent dreams of falling which don’t happen much these days.
My most interesting dream of late was about Catherine Keener—I knew her when she was a dental patient in my office in SoCal.
In my dream, she and Dermot were my neighbors here in NW Arkansas. She showed up at my place one day in an old Nash Rambler stuffed to the headliner because she was leaving Dermot. (They actually have been divorced for a few years.) She opened the rear passenger door and two horses tumbled out. Both were bridled and saddled. One was a paint named Bill and the other was a dapple gray named Old Bill. I agreed to keep them for her and then I woke up.
The only explanation I can come up with is I had watched a movie trailer with her in it that day and I had been reading about George Romney.
UsainB
It’s funny that you mention this, mon. I had the craziest dream last night that I was a tubby, early-40s white dude with a tubby cat to match. and I couldn’t run worth shit.
(can’t believe no one has taken advantage of this obvious joke in 146 comments…)
danah gaz (fka gaz)
People don’t dream in color? who knew?
artem1s
all my dreams are in color but I usually only notice when the color has some significance or is weird in some way.
I used to have reoccurring dreams about bears attacking me. But I pretty much exorcized them by making art about them in graduate school.
I also had the typical student responsibility dreams starting with my first semester of college. They always involved forgetting to show up for a class that I forgot I signed up for and now have to talk the professor out of giving me an F. These always occurred in and around finals week. They were especially anxiety producing because unlike most of my other scary dreams, I could not convince myself it wasn’t real (I have always been pretty good at directing my dreams, but not these).
Then when I got to graduate school and was a TA I started to have teacher responsibility dreams along with the student responsibility dreams. I would dream that I was teaching a class on a subject I knew nothing about. I usually hadn’t been to the class in several weeks and/or could not find the classroom.
Together these dreams made the end of the class terms extremely stressful. I was really relieved to at least get rid of the student variety but had the teacher variety for years while was adjunct teaching.
Beth in VA
That Usain Bolt dream is awesome. Just awesome. I can imagine Native American tribal elders taking that dream very seriously. I’m a scientist, but I gotta think that means something pretty cool about your life and psyche.
violentdreams
@asiangrrlMN:
Can’t tell you how much better it makes me feel that others have violent dreams. The ones I remember have large body counts. Maybe that is why I remember them.
TheronWare
Actually John, I used to have the same sort of flying dreams where I would hover just out of reach of danger.
Mjaum
There is a simple test for whether you are nuts. Do you have a fear of squirrels?
(This works better in a language with distinct second person singular and second person plural… Meh.)
asiangrrlMN
@violentdreams: Back in my twenties, I used to dream about death so often, a friend joked that if you hadn’t died in one of my dreams, you weren’t really my friend. I have also died in my dreams as well.
Rafer Janders
What I find most interesting is that somewhere in Jamaica, in the middle of last night, Usain Bolt woke up screaming in covered in sweat. And right now, he’s going around to everyone who’ll listen, telling them about this incredibly vivid and weird dream he had in which he was a somewhat misanthropic American blogger….
Original Lee
Dude, if it won’t weird you out too much, you should read Lincoln’s Dreams, by Connie Willis. One of the main characters appears to be having Robert E. Lee’s dreams. No spoilers, so you have to read the book to understand the title.
I have heard from a sleep specialist of my acquaintance that if you remember very vivid dreams without making a special effort to remember them, you might be too warm in the REM stage. Body temperature apparently can make a difference on sleep, IIRC. Fewer blankets on the bed might make a difference.
I have very vivid dreams, almost always in color. If they are black-and-white, it’s because I’m having some sort of time travel experience and I guess because of newsreels dream in the same palette. I remember the nightmares, because I wake up in the middle of them, and some of the ones I have just before I wake up in the morning.
YO on the high school nightmares. I get them every year about this time of year, triggered by the start of school.
I also have very vivid organizational nightmares when I’m stressed. For instance, I’m a refugee from a natural disaster, and I’m in a middle school gym waiting for my turn to get on a train outta there, and some guy with a clipboard comes up to me and wants me to have two boy names and two girl names in case I’m pregnant with twins, otherwise I can’t get on the train. I had this dream a couple of times, and I can smell that special locker room aroma and feel the backpack on my back and the way my suitcase handle cuts into my hand. Or I have to host a dinner party for twenty and all of the guests except for two have some kind of special food requirement and I have to come up with a menu that everybody can eat and that I can prepare in less than six hours. Stuff like that.