what dreams may come

It's 7pm PST and I'm dragging my heels since I didn't get a ton of sleep last night.  A little jet lag still lingering in my bones plus I had a wake me upper last night.

     There's afight going on in my home.  My old home, my childhood house.  I don't know what the cause of the conflict is but my father is there and he is enraged.  He's shouting and threatening like he used to do.  People are around me and feeling scared.  Once again I feel like I have to be the one who solves the conflict.  I say to him, "dad stop it, you're freaking out."  He looks at me, even more angry now, "what did you say!"  I repeat what I said, "stop freaking out."  "I'm not freaking out, I'm not freaking out."  and all of a sudden he goes pale and begins to shrivel up in front of me, collapsing on the floor.

     I grab a hold of him and start yelling at him "I love you, I love you, you are beautiful" bu the continues to shrivel up, his rage still burning.  He melts into the floor and disappears.

     Next thing I know I am arranging a bunch of carpet pieces on the floor in an attempt to perform an exorcism.  To those around me, (and I'm not sure who they are) I say that I am going to cast a spell and draw the demons out of my father so he can be at peace.  I start saying "abadabadula" and waving my arms around.  I get a little freaked out because I'm not sure what will happen if they demons do come.  I'm not that strong of a wizard.  One of the people beside me says "I can't see anything.  Nothing's happening."  I ask if he knows what a demon looks like.  He says he doesn't.  So I suggest there's no way he can tell whether or not he can actually see if any are coming up out of the carpet.

   Nothing much does happen that I can remeber.  And I don't know what it is that wakes me but I'm up and can't get back to sleep after that one.

 

I had many vivid and exciting dreams while I was overseas.  Perhaps the air, the food, the organic beer, the rest, I don't know.  But I couldn't remember any of them for more than a second or two after waking.

However I did have one the other day back here in Vancouver.  I was involved in a poetry slam.  For the first time ever I froze on stage, I blanked, I couldn't go on and I received 5 straight 0.0's.  I felt so happy.  I was glad to be the worst score ever.

My dream life continues to be invigorating.  I had my mind blown open by one in particular over the weekend.  And I have to say that I think that the vividness of my dreams over the course of my life, both the joyous ones and the terrfying ones, has been one of the biggest influences for my creative life.  I think my subconscious has been active in providing me the gift to see the world in an off kilter way.

My recollection of the dream begins with me living in a suburban neighborhood somewhere.  I am inside my house and I notice there is a commotion of some sort occuring outside.  I step outside and see a friend of mine in the middle of the cul de sac staring at the sky.  He has one arm up over his face shielding his eyes from the light.  The entire area is being covered by an encroaching shadow, a metallic grey twilight hue.  The colour is very striking.  I notice a few other neighbors on their lawns, also looking skyward.

I turn my head and see an eclipse of the sun taking place.  A planet is moving in front of the sun.  The amazing thing about this is how close the sun and the planet are.  It seems like they are no more than a couple hundred feet away.  You can almost touch them.  They are gigantic and the immensity is overwhelming.  As the planet moves in front of the sun, solar flares are shooting up in protest across the rim of the planet.  The sun seems to be fighting in vain this inevitable blockade.

As the planet moves further across the face of the sun the darkness seems to become clearer and the objects within it become more into focus.  I then notice that there is a moon orbiting around the planet that is moving in front of the sun.  The moon is even closer than the other two.  It's features are clear as can be.  I can see the craters and mountains and oceans of dust spinning before me.  The moon is twirling majestically and slowly shooting round the planet and sun and then coming around again on the other side.

Around this point in time I finally recognize the planet and it is Earth.  The moon is Earht's moon.  And the neighborhood I'm living in appears to exist on an asteroid or very small planetoid floating in space randomly.  After this realization the moon comes around again, now even closer and I decide to step onto it.  Riding on the moon it now moves closer towards the Earth and it seems like I am riding on some sort of magic carpet or surf board.

The moon dips in close to the surface of the Earth.  It too is bathed in the same shiny metallic grey twilight as my cul de sac.  As we pass nearby I can see a village spread out over a mountainside and its subordinate valley.  The houses and other buildings are gorgeous and elaborate in their architecture.  They seem to be one with the landscape.  A combination of Buddhist temples or Arabic Mosques.  For some reason the thought that this country is Turkey pops into my head.  However the entire city is deserted.  There are no people.  There are no lights, no candles, no electricity.  The earth is silent.

I travel around a bit more amazed at what I am seeing and then I eventually wake up.

And the thing that strikes me most about this dream is the sense of awe I had while in it.  The awe of watching and experiencing whatever cosmic force(s) that rules/runs the universe unfolding/playing before me and I was allowed to be in the midst of it.  The vividness of the sun flaring up in resistance, the shape and contours of the moon, the colour of the lanscape, and the wonderful village I saw.   It was wow.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how easily "realities" are able to overlap.  My dream life slips into my waking world and vice versa.  And not just in the "your subconscious is processing your unconscious waking life" into your dreams perspective.

As an example.  I saw comedian, Brian Regan last night and the night before I watched the film "The Fountain."  Both managed to slip into my dreams last night.

I'm wandering out on some barren desert landscape.  Me and one other person...Brian Regan.  The landscape is pure red.  The sky, the sun, the desert around us.  We are dressed in some sort of para military fashion, walking around with large guns, on patrol for something.  We're not talking.  We are able to breathe the air.  I am amazed at how red everything is.  I think of Mars, "The Red Planet" but we are not on Mars, we are on Earth.  Somehow I know this.

At some point in time while wandering this desert landscape I get the feeling that coyotes are near.  There is no sense of threat or danger, just an awareness of their presence.  I notice my gun is no longer a gun but a long rope with a whistle or several whisltes attached to the end of it.  I am swinging the rope around my head rather vigorously.  It's making a whistling noise of course and this is attracting the coyotes to where we are.  There is still no sense of danger or violence.

The landscape has now changed and instead of barren wasteland there is a large wooden wall to my left and a lot of brush and shrubbery.  ("not a shrubbery!")  I'm still twirling and twisting the rope overhead although in much smaller circles as the room around me has shrunk noticeably.

The coyotes are in front of me and I start backing down a narrow corridor as they have begun to approach me, and while I still don't feel threatened by them I am somewhat uncomfortable and beginning to worry for some reason.  Behind me is Brian Regan and he is leading the retreat.  The passage we are in is getting narrower and narrower.  The coyotes are getting closer.  Behind me I hear Brian calling for me to run and get out of there.  I drop the rope and whislte and start to run.  The canyon is extremely cramped now and the only fissure which to squeeze through and escape is too small for me.  I get stuck and the coyotes take advantage and come for me.

I wake up.

The last little bit withing the canyon is reminiscent of some of the earlier scenes in The Fountain where the conquistadors are in South America and as they near the Mayan temple they are suddenly trapped and surrounded by Mayan warriors.

Just snippets of dreams fromt he past few days remain in my noggin.

I continue to have dreams where I am either being chased or being hunted/stalked.  Last night I dreamt I was in one of my childhood homes and I was being tracked by a group of people.  The house was still under construction.  I could see through holes where the doorknob should be.  Doors wouldn't stay completely closed.  I'd catch glimpses of people just as they were passing trhough doorways.  The lighting was dim.

The night before I was being chased through a series of tunnels.  Or they were more like large concrete water mains.  Regardless, I was being chased and then made it outside where I met Michael Caine who helped me track whoever it was that was chasing my by whacking a shovel onto the ground around the pipes.

Also last night I went riding down the edge of the Hoover Dam.  I wrapped my arm around the edge and slid down at top speed.  I kept worrying that I would let go, that I would fall to my doom, but I hung on and made it all the way down.  It was exhilirating.

Friday night I had a gig in Vancouver.  I was pretty tired and feeling kind of groggy in the head because I hadn't been getting a lot of sleep.  Nothing strange there.  When I returned home I checked my phone messages I had a voice mail from Brendan Mcleod inviting me out.  I couldn't go because it was too late and I had to get up early for a mini softball tournament.

However that phone call had some sort of infuence.

I dreamt that Brendan was in my apartment, jumping on my bed, encouraging me to go out with him.  Then he hopped into bed with me and laid down beside me.  I started asking him how his gig went and then if he had read the book Underworld by Don DeLillo.  It was a very non sexual dream but it was also quite intimate in a way.  I'm sure Mr. Mcleod would find it hilarious.  Because it was a couple of days ago I can't recall all the details but in the dream we spent a lot of time in the apartment joking around.

I have to say that I have increasing difficulty distinguishing between "reality" memories and "dream" memories and which are which.  I go to talk to someone about something that I swear has happened and they're all "what the hell are you talking about?" because it's something that happened between us in a dream.  Weird.

It seems I'm talking in my sleep.  My sleep patterns aren't really patterns per se at least I can't find any.  And while I don't recall any dreams I had last night, as far as adventures go I do remember feeling like there was someone else in the bed the entire night talking to me.  They were telling me not to kick the covers off the bed because I had holes in my underwear and someone (who?) might see my bum.

So, rather than spend the night in a restful sleep I kept waking up in conversation with someone or something or .......?

The other night I had a dream that began with me in mid air, bodiless, on a fog laced mountaintop.  It was near dusk as lamp posts placed all over the mountainside began to alight.  As that was happening I noticed a band shell and auditorium a bit further down the mountain.  As the sun was setting and the lights were coming on a choir on stage began to sing Handel's "Messiah."

It was beautiful and I remarked to myself how gorgeous the entire mountainside looked and how wonderful and appreciative I felt to experience something so magnificent.

I wasn't really floating or flying at this point.  Mostly it felt like I was observing from that out of  body experience point of view we sometimes have.  (I'll say "we" assuming I'm not the only one.)

Then, perhaps emboldened by the exhiliration of what I just experienced, I did start to fly.  I was zooming down the mountain, weaving in and out and around the lamp posts and the forest dotting the hillside.  There was also someone else flying alongside of me but I don't recall who.  For some reason I was also able to see myself flying at the same time I was flying.  It seemed like the shape of my body was similar to that of a Stealth Bomber airplane.  Perhpas more shadow and cartoon like than the actual plane.

I can't remember the specifics of the conversation but I was engaged in one with my flying partner.  It was generally positive though.

The thing most striking about this dream was the beginning.  The fog, the lights, the singing.  I felt blessed.  It reminds me of the scene in "F for Fake" where Orson Welles is talking about Chartres Cathedral and the sky is dimming and the lights are coming on along the French countryside.  However in the movie there is a lot of purple and darker colours.  In my dream it seemed more golden and bright.