This is well-known as one of the most self-centered, rude things to do – nobody wants to hear your dreams. Absolutely nobody. Maybe my mother did, for a little bit when I was about ten. That’s it.
You can pay people to listen to your dreams; that’s true. But aside from that, it’s the ultimate conversation killer.
Which makes it the perfect subject for the InvisiBlog.
I’ve been taking an antibiotic for my nose (never mind… long MEDICAL story; another thing you’re not supposed to talk about in company), and I think it’s been affecting my dreams. I’m now having epic, action-packed dreams, full of meaning and portent, teeming with characters, rooms that lead to other rooms that disgorge onto sunbaked, weed-strewn outdoor stages amid cliffs and tumbled stone walls.
Last night (here we go) I was making a movie, but it seemed more of a play. I think I was acting in it. My wife was there, I think she was directing, but she wasn’t my wife. I was younger and better-looking than I really am, and there was a beautiful young WASP woman, reminiscent of Catherine Blanc (remember her? First grade? No? Both Eric and I wanted to sit next to her… who knows why; we were six!), but in her mid-20s. She seemed strangely available to me. Events would happen, like I would be in a scene in a white costume, on a stage in what looked like a run-down 18th century theater, partly outdoors, with just a few audience members; or I would be on a concrete platform outdoors, in the country, with colleagues, and I was so happy to be working with them all again (the implication was that we worked together intensely on projects, then didn’t see each other for months, but had a great time every time). And between these events, I would wander down halls, go into a room, and she’d be there, lounging about, with a wry smile, and dressed for a regatta, or a tennis tourney.
There were parts of this dream I can only remember impressionistically, where I am asked to explain a bit of text, and it seemed to me that in our, regular, world, the text was meaningless, but in this, parallel, world, it had the deepest implications. I wish I could remember the words – it was only two words. The kind of magic word, like Shazam, that if you could remember it and invoke it in the waking world, something crazy might happen.
Anyway… now it’s out of my system, I suppose. I’d like to see those words again.