Tag: Dreams

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Dream residue leaves me with “Touch Me” this morning, a song by The Doors from 1968. I was twelve when it came out.

Don’t know why it came up after the dream. Mind works in bizarro manners. Could be the name of my mind: Welcome to Bizarro Manor. Fits. I’m always being accused of having an unusual sense of humor and thinking differently than others. Alas, guilty, but it does bring a sense of isolation.

Hmm, maybe that’s where this song comes in. “Come on, touch me, babe. Can’t you see that I am not afraid? What was that promise that you made?”

This was an interesting video from that era.

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A Movin’ On Dream

I was visiting a wealthy male friend for some holiday. It was a stop during my travels. In the dream, we were in our late twenties. He was putting me up for a day and night. Had a big, fancy place with alabaster walls high above everything else on a mountainside overlooking the ocean, window walls with fantastic views. He lived there alone.

We visited, nothing special, had a good time. The next day, he went off to work while leaving me with things that I should do before going, if I could, as it would help him out, undoing things that he’d done for my visit. I planned to do them but kept getting distracted. Then, curious, I walked down a winding path to where he worked, to see what he did. He met me as I left the path and told me, “I just manage things.”

It was growing close to my time to depart. I had flights to catch. He told me to take one of his cars. A short and confused discussion followed because I thought I had my own car. I did, but it apparently wasn’t available, I discovered, because he’d taken it off to be worked on, cleaned up, and detailed. That took me aback, but I was grateful and pleased, too.

Something about a container followed. He had this container that he used to do things. He did it surreptitiously. I got hold of one. It was a light green square. My impression was that it was a box for getting a burger from takeout. I opened the box and verified that it was empty. Residue inside it was from a cheeseburger, showing traces of cheese, lettuce, onion, and tomato.

I was running late by then, so rushed to depart. As I did, driving away in his fancy car — don’t know what it was, except it was white and luxurious — I saw that I’d forgotten to do something that I’d promised to do for him. I wanted to go back but realized that I couldn’t, so I went on with the intention of calling him from the airport.

Got to a busy, bustling airport. It was more like a city than an airport that I’d ever visited, with multiple highways and flyovers connecting busy commerce centers and terminals teeming with people. After a bit of confusion and disorientation, I found my way, parked his car, and called him, telling him where I’d parked and what I’d forgotten to do. He reassured me that it was okay, don’t worry about it. Disconnecting, I went on to catch my flight.

 

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The Game Dream

First was a non-related prelude.

I was with my wife at home. We had a large ginger tabby. He was grooming himself. I thought I saw a flea on his back. I attempted to pluck the flea out, but it moved away. The cat became agitated. After I calmed him, I attempted to get the flea again. Spreading his fur, I saw three fleas. I realized his issue was more pressing than thought, and went to get some tick and flea control. That segment ended.

What I remember of the main dream is pausing from other activities to kill time by playing a card game. I don’t remember anything of the game. Me, my wife, and a friend were playing.

The friend was teaching us the game. In real life, he’s a retired spokesman for Oregon Department of Forestry, dealing with wildfires. He’s a big guy, bearded, with a deep, booming voice, memorable in the dream.

We played the game, and he won the first hand by using all of us cards. He was then dealt cards from the remaining pile. When no cards remained, he played the last of his cards and won the game. He then explained, “Normally, when one person wins by going out, the other people pay them a dollar a card for each card in their hand. What do you guys want to do?” He was smiling as he spoke, and said, “I’m alright if you guys don’t want to do that.”

I only had a few cards but my wife was carrying twenty cards. My personal (dream) opinion was that we shouldn’t play by that rule, not because we were new to the game, or that she had so many cards, but because there were only three of us playing.

That’s where the dream ended.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Weep for yourself, my man,
You’ll never be what is in your heart
Weep, little lion man,
You’re not as brave as you were at the start
Rate yourself and rake yourself
Take all the courage you have left
And waste it on fixing all the problems that you made in your own head

But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn’t I, my dear?
Didn’t I, my…

h/t to AZLyrics cuz cut and paste is easier than typing.

So it was that “Little Lion Man” by Mumford & Sons (2009) was going through my head this morning. Writing, a dream, and cats share almost equal weight in bringing the song into my stream.

The dream was about jigsaw puzzles, parties, hockey, and drunk celebrities in a brightly lit and strangely joyful montage that also seemed a bit fucked up, and left me to, well, puzzle it out. The cat was the little ginger lion that I was talking to this morning (you’re not as brave as you were at the start). Writing…well, writing is all about fixing the problems in my head. Not exactly a dark place, but not a clean, well-lighted place for enjoying life, either.

So, now, after singing the song to myself yesterday after writing, it returned to me after thinking about my dreams this morning, and gained strength when I was talking with the cat. Thus, it must be outed from my stream before it gains too much steam and stays too long.

For the record, I enjoy Mumford & Sons’ style, and its infusion of unique sounds in rock music. This video, with its intensity, and the sense of isolation and alienation that I find in it, keeps me watching. It’s like a confession that he’s making to himself but also a dialogue in his head that he imagines having, as the others play and listen. Then, they all join in, as though it was universal to the band members. Through it all flows introspection, a simmering sense of regret, and a realization.

 

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Monday’s Theme Music

It seems like my mind is determined to turn back time in my dreams. It’s also making all these song connections. (Like, boom, Cher has begun singing, “If I could turn back time.”)

The dreams were crazy chaos, leaving images like flashes of sunlight off of windshields. The dreams’ theme was ‘anything goes’. That theme conjured up the show tune from the musical with the same name, “Anything Goes”, which, let’s see…came out twenty-two years before my birth, but the movie did come out the year I was born.

Out of this throwback, go-go sense came the song that’s haunting the morning’s stream (now I have this image of a musical urine stream…oh, boy. (“I heard the news today, oh boy.” Yeah, the Beatles.) It’s from a 1964 movie, so I was eight.

The song is “The Monkey’s Uncle”. Although the Beach Boys perform it with Annette Funicello singing it, it’s written by the Sherman Brothers. Yeah, I looked it up. I knew the first two pieces but not the third. The Sherman Brothers were prolific songwriters. You should check out their list. I can tell you that one of their other songs, “It’s A Small World”, has entered my stream.

Meanwhile, the monkey’s uncle idiom amuses me. In one of those flashes in the dream, someone else says it in what feels like a sitcom moment. I’m looking at the guy when he does. Canned laughter kicks in, and then the song begins.

I don’t hear people say, “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” that often any longer. I think it was dying out as a popular saying even when I was young, sputtering along in movies and television where caricatures of old folks say it.

That frenetic dream activity left me felt energized, like it was a storm blowing out my mind’s systems. Anyway, the long and short of it (had to throw that in, it was in dream), is “The Monkey’s Uncle” is today’s theme music.

Feel free to sing along, or if you’re like me, laugh along, with the video.

 

 

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Here We Are

Here we sit, on the first day of 2020. 

Memes about the roaring twenties abound, but others are attracted to the vision aspect of 20/20. That’s funny when you think of it; people often think of 20/20 vision as perfect vision. 

It’s not.

“A person with 20/20 vision can see what an average individual can see on an eye chart when they are standing 20 feet away,” says Dr. McKinney, an ophthalmologist and glaucoma specialist at Eye Health Northwest in Oregon City, Ore.

An eye chart measures visual acuity, which is the clarity or sharpness of vision. The top number refers to your distance in feet from the chart. The bottom number indicates the distance at which a person with normal eyesight can read the same line.

For example, if you have 20/30 vision, it means your vision is worse than average. When you are standing 20 feet from the chart, you can read letters that most people see when they are 30 feet away.

h/t to American Academy of Ophthalmology.

You can argue that 20/20 means clear vision to you. That’s fine; we’re not here to nitpick.

Whatever it means and whatever you do, when you create your vision for this day, week, month, project, or year, make it your vision for you to see where you’re going, and give yourself some ways to measure your progress.

If you’re serious about wanting to achieve that vision, you should write it down. Studies have shown that doing so helps you become more likely to achieve your dreams (h/t to Huffpost). Evidence exists that the path to success becomes stronger if you share your dreams and ambitions with a friend who believes in your ability to succeed.

So, don’t wait for success and achievement to fall into your lap. Pursue it. Write it down. Put it out there. Find someone who believes in your ability to succeed.

Create your vision and pursue your dreams.

Cheers

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Water Dream

It was a water dream featuring Dad.

He and I lived in a house together. I was a teenager. Our house was pleasant and modern, with water features in the backyard.

We were going about the early morning with him talking to me about something as we were in the backyard. Hearing running water, I traced the source to a pipe sticking out of the house’s side beside the faucet. I’d never seen that on a house.

Water started flowing from it. I put my hand under it; it was was warm. I said, “Dad, I think something is wrong. There’s warm water coming out of this pipe.”

Dad said, “Yeah, we’d better check it out.” Then he went on about how he needed to go out and get something to eat. When he talked about the food, his choices appalled me. He was saying something about getting about a dozen sliders and I ended up asking him to get me a couple.

“But what about the water?” I asked.

“You take care of that for me,” he said.

I went into the house. Shock struck. Water was seeping out of everywhere. The kitchen floor was swollen with a huge lump in the middle. Horror seizing me, I thought, “This water is pent up and is going to burst, where are the valves, I need to shut the water off,” and ran to find the valves.

Dad returned (I don’t think he’d actually left but had been in another part of the house). I showed him the lump and leaks. I told him that I’d shut the water off. He said, “We’d better do something about that. Find someone to call.”

Ready for the pipes to burst, I dug out the phone book to call a plumber.

The dream ended.

Editing note: No, I didn’t get up and go to the bathroom.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Counseling myself last night as I stepped out and hunted stars through the descending night fog, I thought about plans, and how easy it is to slip into a comfortable rut and let yourself stay there, successful in the rut to the detriment of everything else. I realized that I’d done that to myself. Easy to do, especially when the rut gives you joy.

My rut is writing. It satisfies me in so many ways, but it definitely steals energy from the rest of my life. I knew I had to shift myself out of my rut when I had my response to agents being interested in some of my work and my response was, meh. That’s just not right.

So I began hunting and shifting the mental and emotional levers to ply myself from my rut. More easily said, am I right? The duality of it all struck me. I’m a person that feels the darkness and rages about once a month, ready to shuck everything in fury and despair. Then that passes and I’m good to go again. I’m fortunate that I know my cycle and cope with it, but not fortunate that I have such a cycle. I’m fortunate, too, that I can see into myself and find the levers to change the cogs. This comes from being sixty plus and having friends and relatives who’d make comments to me that opened my awareness to how others see me, subsequently providing me with greater insight into myself. It comes from luck, too; others know these things but struggle more with it than me. (Yeah, and there’s a ton of other stuff, nature vs. nurture, socialization, genes, etc. We’re dynamic, complicated beings, always playing on the balance of a blade.)

Well, to the music, then, because this is about the day’s theme music. Into this crucible of thought flowed words from “Over My Head (Cable Car)” by The Fray (2005).

Everyone knows I’m in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She’s on your mind
She’s on your mind

h/t to Songmeanings.com for the lyrics, because it’s easier to get them right by copying and pasting.

It was that ‘eight seconds left in overtime’ that I keyed to, not that there was pressure, nor that time was running out, rather the impetus from the image of a sports game that something needs to be done. The goals are clear; now execute. Get ‘er done.

Laborious explanation for a song choice, innit? Happy Monday, campers. Cheers

 

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