Posts Tagged ‘dreams’

Dream Diary: My Non-Shootout With Michael Jackson

Tuesday, February 18th, 2014

I dreamed I was in the process of buying a bank. One customer I knew was telling me she was going to sue me, even though I didn’t even own the bank yet. I think she was doing it out of spite.

Then I was riding in a car with someone I think wanted to sell some sort of service to my bank. While we drove I was worried about what level of fractional reserve the bank should have in these tough economic times. (Yes, I dreamt about fractional reserve banking; I’m just a wild and crazy guy). But then the guy driving drove up and over an unfinished overpass, despite my warning, and we landed with a crash in a closed Target parking lot at night.

I was walking along after that, and I had to go into a convenience store to use the bathroom (yes, one of those dreams), but I was worried my dog would run off while I was inside.

Inside it was more like a hotel or bank lobby, and when I went into the restroom, it was some sort of cave (more like a video game cave than a real one).

For some reason, Michael Jackson was holding a ridiculously long antique wooden rifle on me, something like 15-20 feet long, saying he wanted to die as a woman and as a defender of the Alamo. (I guess he was channeling Phil Collins here.)

The gun was so close to my face that I swept the barrel aside with my left hand while I pulled my own gun out of my pocket with my right. But I couldn’t fire it because there was a beef jerky packet stuck to it that prevented operating the trigger.

Meanwhile, Michael Jackson had turned into a friend of mine, and not only was the rifle he holding normal sized, but it turned out to be made of beef jerky packets connected together in the shape of a gun as well.

Then I woke up.

Dream Diary: Intimations of Doom

Wednesday, January 29th, 2014

Not a lot of news on the personal blogging front, so I’ll put down last night’s dream. which was interesting not only for multiple dreamed disasters, but also because I remembered long stretches and multiple scenes of it.

First I dreamed my family and I were all living in a spacious glass-walled condo (we never lived in any type of condo), when three assault helicopters surrounded the building. Since they were flying at exactly our level, we came to the conclusion they were spying on us and closed all the drapes/blinds. We also worried they were eavesdropping on us, or had tapped our (landline) phones, so we went out for Chinese food.

At the Chinese restaurant, we hadn’t even been seated when I noticed a tornado off in the distance, shouted to alert the restaurant of this fact, then made my way to an inner corner to duck and cover. I remember that corner seemed unused and trash-strewn. (I dream semi-regularly about tornadoes, though thankfully I’ve never seen one in person.)

Later I was walking toward downtown Austin, when I looked up and saw debris floating in the air, and realized a large bomb had gone off. Troops were coming in on one of those large street overpasses Austin doesn’t have, and I quickly turned and walked the other direction for fear of being blamed for the bomb. (I put this down to watching videos of the situation in Ukraine.)

Next I was in a building and realized that the political elites had all left earth for another planet, that the infrastructure on this one was starting to fail, and two women were there for vaguely menacing reasons, trying to get me to go somewhere. I tried to convince them that the situation was a great reason to have sex, but they weren’t buying it. I also remember speaking at a meeting/rally on the problem, where I was trying to work the word “sabotage” into the description of the problem, so I could then introduce the Beastie Boys and get them to play that.

Finally, I remember driving up to a beach house in my uncle’s car, driving into the garage, then through a second space, an finally into a third space that opened out into three separate parking spaces lobes, each on a sort of upward slope. I remember thinking it was a lot of space for a garage, and worrying since his car had no reverse. But once inside it was some sort of townhouse and wasn’t on the beach, where I was waiting with other people for friends to show up. Then I had the usual “I’m naked” moment, but I wasn’t sure whether it was time yet to go out to my car and get my clothes.

Then I woke up

Missing My Prize Fight Debut

Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013

I had a dream the other night where I was late for my boxing debut.

The boxing arena seemed to be on the edge of a large shopping mall, and I had to ask directions to find it. I heard my name announced as the next fighter as I was entering the building, but I couldn’t seem to find my way down to what was presumably the ring (which I never came in sight of). It was less like Spinal Tap being lost backstage than the building being larger, older and more Gothic than I expected. At one point I saw some sort of rickety, extensible cherry picker/dunking stool/extending bridge contraption, which looked like it might deposit me over a wall where I needed to go, but looked too dangerous to try. Also, I noticed I wasn’t wearing shoes, which I was pretty sure was a breach of boxing rules.

I woke up before I ever got to the ring.

Dreams (Anxious and Otherwise)

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

I find it interesting that anxiety dreams tends to manifest themselves in recurring situations that never actually happened to me.

For example, there’s that classic “having to take a test you haven’t studied for” dreams which, like probably just about everyone else on the planet, I used to have. (Usually I did really well on tests, even if I hadn’t studied for them.) Frequently I was vaguely aware that I hadn’t attended the class for the entire semester and finals were coming up. I even had anxiety dreams about high school long after I graduated college. I haven’t had those for a while, and the last few I had I remembered thinking “Wait, I’ve graduated college. I don’t need to take a high school class.”

Speaking of high school, there’s the one where I’m at a high school reunion or function, and I can’t find someone.

There’s that old chestnut, “I’m naked/in my underwear in public” dream.

There’s the usual “I have to pee but the toilet is broken/missing/something else” dream, which is your body telling you, yes, you do need to wake up just long enough to go pee.

Recently I’ve had another recurring favorite, anxiety over possibly missing a flight. (OK, that did happen to me once, back in 1987. Lesson: Never trust New York subway schedules.) You find yourself thinking “Wait, what time is it? Shouldn’t I already be at the airport? Why haven’t I packed anything?”

Another favorite: I’m supposed to be driving my car, but for some reason I’m in the back seat, or facing the wrong way, and the car starts slipping and sliding away and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Another auto-related favorite: I’m on a high bridge or overpass, and the freeway just ends (somehow, this never actually results in a crash).

Also automotive-related: Going back outside to find that your car has been stolen.

Another one: My apartment has been robbed. (And I’ve owned my house for just shy of five years now.) Or I catch someone breaking into my house and shoot at them, but the bullet comes out with such pitifully weak velocity that it just bounces off them.

I suspect many of the above are fairly common. But I have a few that are probably narrowly shared. I did a lot of plays in high school and was a Drama major in college, so frequently I’ll have a dream where I’m supposed to to be in a play and I haven’t learned any lines. (Strangely, these never seem to bother me particularly, as I usually end up trying to find a copy of the script to do a quick read before I go on, but I’ve never had the dream actually continue to the point I get on stage.)

Dreams, of course, are your brains garbage collection system, filing away the memories collected while you’re awake. And Sigmund Freud was full of it.

(And how’s a description of your dreams for the ultimate in self-indulgent blog posts?)