Tag: identity

The Goatee Dream

First, there was a sex dream. The neighbor’s cat was crying at the door and broke that spell. After I let her in (and provided a meal), I used the loo. Back to bed, I thought about the dream and hoped it would return (as it was comforting and pleasant).

It didn’t. In its stead came the beard dream. Standing in front of a mirror, I prepared to trim my goatee and ‘stache. What I saw horrified me; the goatee was massively overgrown.

I began trying to trim it while wondering how it’d come to look so bad with collateral thoughts of, had something happen to me, did it always look so horrid, and geez, why didn’t anyone say anything to me?

My wife was in the dream’s background, talking, giving me the impression that, “We needed to leave soon.” Don’t know to where. I responded that I was almost ready (not true), but that I just had to trim my goatee.

I saw my goatee had grown to double bumps hanging down, which didn’t do anything for my face. I looked like Depp in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but more withered and grayer. Naturally, I concluded, trim them. Somehow, trimming them worsened their appearance. Recoiling with fresh horror, I decided that it all looked so bad that the only thing that I could do is shave the goatee off entirely. Trying, though, I ended up revealing a bloody wound that the beard concealed.

What happened? Had I cut myself? Meanwhile, my wife was calling for me to hurry and my beard had darkened and grown across my lower face.

That’s where the dream ended.

Yeah, classic self-image dream about my identity, isn’t it?

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Choices

He was recovering from his surgery. Blood, of course, kept seeping into the bandages. They told him that would happen.

The surgery’s grogginess was finally gone by the next morning, but he was surprised by how much the surgery limited him. His movements were slow and tentative. Talk about a damn anchor. He felt pain, too, dull, throbbing, and steady.

They’d given him pain killers. He read the label and all of its warnings. Taking hydrocodon ACET 5/325 might make him drowsy or dizzy. “Do not drink alcohol with this drug.”

Well, that was that. He preferred a glass of wine or a mug of beer over some pain relief. Besides, if he took the hydrocodon, he wasn’t supposed to drive. He’d been driving since he was fourteen, beginning on the back-country roads of western Pennsylvania over fifty years ago. Not drive? That was unacceptable. He kept his red Camaro convertible clean and polished. Forget all of his education and work success; driving was one of the foundations of who he was, driving, beer and wine, and rock and roll.

That was him.

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The Dream the Night Before Last

This dream comes from the bizarro files.

I was with my wife. We were on a military installation. Walking around as we did while we were young, we were checking out the clubs and exchange. We then decided to leave to explore other places.

Promises of rain shaded the clouds’ colors. We started walking across a broad asphalt expanse. Partway across, I realized I had to piss. Telling my wife that I’d catch up, I hurried to find a latrine but failed to get there in time and pissed my pants. I left the latrine with pissed pants but seeing how I looked in daylight, I decided I needed to go back, remove my pissed pants, and let them dry. So I did.

The latrine was crowded and busy. It wasn’t like a latrine so much as community room with latrines and showers to one side, vaguely reminiscent of an Army place I once visited. Music played from boom boxes. Others watched sat on sofas and chairs or were on beds, watching television. The walls were painted cinder block.

While I was taking all of this in, my pants disappeared. Discovering that, I figured they were stolen. Whoever took them left fluffy gray sweat pants in their place. I had to wear something, so I put those on. With them were Ugg boots. I guessed they went with the sweats, so I put them on, too.

Then I left, walking across the asphalt to find my wife. Naturally, seeing me in gray sweats with Uggs instead of jeans and my regular shoes, my wife wanted to know what happened. I explained in a long, round-about ramble.

And there the dream ended, with me bewildered in a parking lot, explaining myself on a cloudy, windy day.

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Lost Identity Dream

Well, that dream was something, starting with the carnival, and finishing with a “Wizard of Oz” ending.

To enlarge, I was at a carnival, and it was day. Several women were present, but nobody I knew. I was working in a roughshod office; I don’t know my job, position or task. Three women – maybe they’re my muses – were distracting me, and then making enticing offers about what would happen if I go with them. One, a tall brunette, was dressed in a sky blue dress, and danced as she moved toward the exit.

I was interested, and more than willing to follow. But, I discovered I was missing items. First, I was missing my car keys. Then, I was missing my green Tilly hat, and finally, I was missing my wallet with my identification and credit cards.

That last shocked me. As the women said good-bye and left, I started a furious, intense search of the carnival grounds. I knew it was a carnival, but it was little more than a few tents and booths set up over sloping, grassy ground. Others were present; one man told me to go to another section. There, I would find a little woman. I should report my loss to her.

I did so, and she provided me with a gold credit card to use until I recovered. It was in a clear plastic sleeve with money and other items to help me. I thanked her, but I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted my wallet, keys, and hat. I wanted my identity, damn it. Yet, I was aware, the clock was running; if I didn’t soon find my lost credit cards and identity, someone else could use them and rip me off. I became concerned about how to explain it to my wife.

I kept searching, and stumbled across my Tilly hat on a patch of grass. Relieved, I picked it up. Underneath it were my wallet and keys. I was overjoyed by the finds. Locating a computer, I checked my accounts, and confirmed that nothing had been charged. Apparently, I decided, I’d just misplaced it all. I was relieved.

Then, though, I acknowledged I had this new, unused credit card in its plastic sleeve, along with the money I was given to assuage my troubles. I tried giving them back, but that option was rejected. I could keep it, I thought, to have something private available for emergencies, but I couldn’t reconcile to myself why I would need something private.

It was still day, as though the sun hadn’t moved. The dream ended with me putting on my Tilly hat and walking away, keys, and wallet in hand, undecided about what to do, but realizing that I’d had all my identity all along.

I’d been worried about nothing.

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Today’s Theme Music

Songs are bouncing through my head. Why today and now?

I don’t know.

They’re happening against the writing, dreaming, holiday, marriage, and life background. Each of those arenas inject their own spectrum of influences. All feel equally strong this week but writing is affecting the others. I’m deeply involved in the novel writing process, so much so that I’m losing track of the calendar and holiday, and I’m withdrawn into my thinking and writing. This, unsurprisingly, triggers my spouse’s deep irritation and some resentment.

I see her point. Yet, that is me, an emotional cripple, and a writer. I write to explore what I think but also what I feel. It leaves me at the crossroads at midnight, waiting to consummate a deal with the devil. I can’t abandon thinking about the novel and its elements of chi-p, Pram, Brett, virii, time-travel and the like. It’s too late for that; the novel’s presence is embedded in my psyche and will likely remain there until the story is fully told.

Yet I look for the leap from my life cycles to the song cycles. I wonder how songs are connected to smells and smells are connected to sights and sights are connected to emotions and emotions are connected to intelligence and intelligence is connected with memory and memory is connected to songs. It’s all wired together but something charges the wires, making some wires come alive, opening and closing switches, and taking me to unexpected places.

Like these songs.

Against the backdrop of writing and living, I’d been thinking about Mike Posner’s song and his lyrics.

I took a pill in Ibiza
To show Avicii I was cool
And when I finally got sober, felt 10 years older
But fuck it, it was something to do
I’m living out in LA
I drive a sports car just to prove
I’m a real big baller ’cause I made a million dollars
And I spend it on girls and shoes

But you don’t wanna be high like me
Never really knowing why like me
You don’t ever wanna step off that roller coaster and be all alone
You don’t wanna ride the bus like this
Never knowing who to trust like this

I was particularly hooked on the lines, ‘But you don’t wanna be high like me, Never knowing why like me’. From there, drifting through the lyrics last night, I awoke today singing:

Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
It ain’t kodachrome and it isn’t black and white
Take me for a fool if you feel that’s right
Well I’m never on my own but there’s nobody in sight

I don’t know if I’m scared of the lightning
Trying to reach me
I can’t turn to the left or the right
I’m too scared to run and I’m too weak to fight
But I don’t care it’s all psychobabble rap to me

Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
It’s in dolby stereo but I never hear it right
Take me for a fool well that’s alright
Well I see the way to go but there isn’t any light

That song is ‘Psychobabble’ by the Alan Parsons Project. The album containing the song was released in 1982. I listened to it on cassette tape while I lived and worked on Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.

I can see how the two songs, Mike Posner’s ‘I Took A Pill in Ibiza’ and Alan Parsons Project’s ‘Psychobabble’ fused in my mind. There’s a thread of questioning identity in both and reflections about our minds and choices. It’s more a question of why those songs nestled into the thinking and feeling about everything else this week.

And as I wrote it, I saw it. These songs arose from the morass because I’m conflicted; because guilt assails me. Because responsibilities and desires are torn and my frustrations are running high.

I thought one of these songs should be today’s theme music for my day. I finally decided to go with ‘Psychobabble’ because it’s more recent. See, it’s the latest one that I’ve been singing.

In my mind.

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Not Always Quick

I’m not always a quick thinker. Otherwise, I would have answers today.

It’s about a dream. Yeah. I should have asked myself, why are you dreaming this? I don’t recall ever featuring pigs in a dream before.

I was feeding a pig. He was a shiny little pink porker. He came downstairs in my house, a very happy and excited little creature. I had company. Friends were visiting. I didn’t want the pig downstairs. So I called him and led him back upstairs.

It was messy upstairs. It seems like we were in a transition. My intention was to feed the pig some cornflakes. He found some on the floor and gobbled them up, but he wanted more. I thought he spotted more but they  turned out to be scraps of paper. He didn’t want to eat those. As I searched for corn flakes to feed him, another pig, slightly larger but equally pink and shiny, emerged, along with a few cats. So I talked to them, telling them I was looking for food and was going to feed them, even as I couldn’t find the food that I expected. I headed downstairs to find some.

I had company, three former co-workers from a flying unit. Laying on sofas, they were watching television and playing games while they chatted to me and my wife. I was annoyed because they had disconnected the best television and were employing old cathode ray televisions on carts. I set about fixing that.

Meanwhile, another friend from the same unit showed up. I asked him what he thought of his new position. He replied, “This is what war sounds like.” Then, using a gallon paint can, he made a metallic rumbling noise that was loud and unpleasant. “All the time,” he said.

Others, less known but known, showed up. Setting up tables, they sat down to prepare food to feed me. I was embarrassed and grateful for their efforts, but I kept trying to tell them that it wasn’t necessary. They ignored me, continuing to cook.

Pigs…confusion…identity. It’s something to research and think about today, since I didn’t bother to ask myself for clarification when it was happening. I’ll need to think quicker next time.

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Matryoshka Dreams

I dreamed within dreams last night. That began during the dream, after my dream self asked myself, “Why am I dreaming this?”

The dream featured multiple arcs but always centered around one main setting. I was in the Air Force again, newly assigned to this place and in charge. The setting featured an intact building where command and control was going on. It was off by itself on a green knoll, surrounded by green fields, with ‘the base’ in the background. Attached to the building was an end room. The end room, accessible from the rest through a door that I could open and close, was damaged. Its lights were always on and its roof was collapsing and sinking in. Water was running from faucets and burst pipes. Others thought nothing of that.

I walked around for some time studying it. I saw this water was causing damage. Although the water was draining away, I disliked the waste. So I turned the water off. I was surprised the water could be turned off, and I was surprised others hadn’t thought of that. I asked others who worked for me to make it part of their routines to check the water to ensure it was off before they left each day.

The POV changed from internal me to outside of me. Sometimes I would drift further out to watch myself in my dream environment. This would often happen in conjunction with me going out to survey the damaged area. The time of day shifted, sometimes being late morning (I knew this) while it was late afternoon or dusk at other times. I noted it becoming muddier around the damaged area. People’s belongings were mired in mud. Pets were struggling with change. I began talking to those who had lived there (they weren’t ‘me’), assessing the damages, directing clean up, and feeding animals. It was during one of those times when I asked myself the question.

In answer, I was treated to dreaming within the dream.

Awakening from the dream in the dream, I understood. As the other dream ended, I knew the dream was about identity, structure and success. This epiphany came as I salvaged cat food to feed a happy talking kitten and then made requests of people working for me to check on items to save water and electricity, and finally, a vantage shift to survey damages from a distance, where I could look down and see it all in its entirety.

The dream(s) inundated me with thinking points for my waking self. So many ask when you tell about your dreams, “How did you feel?” So I’ll tell: I felt introspective and thoughtful. I felt in charge and in control. I felt like the sun had burned away an enormous swath of Tule fog.

I felt like I’d been given a clear direction. Now I just need to follow that path.

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