The Other Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

Completely without the aid of halucinogens or any sort of psychotropic drugs I can attest to you there are times when I sit stupidly, looking out at the world with an expression so blank it says "wait until the ringing, after you hit me with the flat of the pan, has stopped", wondering truly if something I just remembered really happened.

Or if I dreamt it.

I'm oft times an insomniac. But there are other nights when I sleep, and dip my brain into the deepest of dreams that I actually remember and replay upon waking.

That's the fun part. I can mentally re-live dreams in images and feelings. The not so fun and quite frankly dumb part is when I insist on describing the damn things to my bed mate. When I was newly single and said mate was an old stuffed bear whom I hung onto because, quite frankly, his carousing was showing my social life up to be the pathetic joke it was, describing dreams was easy. Bear was not possessed of speech, so I would recount mentally the dream, adding a verbal;

"Ain't that something else?"

Bear would get it. And nod.

I've had a lot of dreams in the last few weeks. Some quite vivid at the time but I can't remember details just now. Over the years, I've had dreams that I do remember and can recount. If you're at all Freudian, you'll see certain distinct categories these fall into that pretty much pin me to the nutcase wall. That's why, when anyone degreed in the study of the human mind asks me about a dream, I usually tell them; "I dreamt about my dog."

Its safer that way.

I've had a lot of incapable dreams, or Sisyphisian dreams of futility. When I was a kid, I always wanted a snowmobile. I remember one dream where I got one and then had no gasoline for the damned thing. I filled the clear plastic fuel tank bladder with turpentine I finally found in the basement and hoped for the best. Then the alarm went off and I woke up to go off and fail yet another math test.

There was the one about being chased by horsemen until I finally found a primed but unloaded blunderbuss. I scrounged around and stuffed the thing full of rock, broken glass and whatever else I could find, rammed the lot down the barrel and fired.

Everything just dribbled out of the barrel and the horsemen continued to come on. Now I know this is some sort of indicator of sexual incapacity and I'd accept that saving for the fact that when I dreamt it I was of an age where the blunderbuss should have rightly cleared the entire field of enemies and then knocked off a few watching racoons, just for good measure.

I've had the actor's nightmare more times than I care to admit. A few weeks ago I strode onto the stage in a one man show and delivered my opening line perfectly only to forget everything thereafter. I've had versions of the actors nightmare which finds me without pants and/or the ability to find them. That's less of a nightmare for me than it is in mental pictures for you. I've been in public with nothing on my feet other than little girl's patent leather buckle shoes. Now that's not so horrible in that I'm a burly, rough-edged man wearing little girl's shoes but rather I don't have a matching frock to compliment my footwear.

And of course I've had the unrequited love dreams. The girl in class you can't manage the nerve to talk to asks you to dance and you spit Kool-Aid in her face. Or the young woman at the office who you want to have notice you finally does.

She did in my dream. Cheryl, the redhead I had been chasing for a while finally noticed me and wanted to talk. I would have, had I not been obligated to ride a bicycle in small circles interminably.

So much for that one.

What happens when you don't wake up from your dreams? Now there's a bunny for another day. But safe to assume, if that happens, you can always spot me:

I'm the guy who forgot his lines, riding a bike in circles, wearing patent leather shoes.

Bunny on.