Wednesday, March 3, 2010

What Dreams Are Made Of:

You know how you have those things about yourself that aren't exactly "trademarks" but might as well be? The traits you assume about yourself? Like, this girl thinks she's party girl, and this guy thinks he always shuts up around parents, and this other guy knows he's the guy who buys people drinks at the bar.

Well I've always been the girl who dreams about herself in third person, doesn't have sex dreams, and almost never has nightmares. Like maybe a few times in my life, but mostly they are just dreams about scary things that I don't feel connected to, because it's in third person.

Lately though, and I can mark the first time to a few months back, I've started dreaming in first person. Which means sex dreams and nightmares too. I don't know exactly if it's linked to dating the Boy, or if it's working from home, or what, but something has shifted in my psyche and all of a sudden my dreams are about me.

I don't know that I like it that much, frankly. Last night I had a dream where I was in a Chinese museum, and the corrupt Chinese military dictatorship had been embezzling money and hiding it in this shrine vault that they were going to open up that day, only they had hidden a massive bomb in the building and they were going to blow everyone up to conceal what they had done. So I had to escape and maybe also try to get people out without the military catching on that I knew, but I wasn't successful. Then as we were leaving I realized a friend of mine was still in there, but I couldn't get him out and he wouldn't pick up his phone. I woke up before the bomb blew up, but it sucked. I woke up feeling like a failure.

The night before I had a dream that I was in that movie The Crazies, and my sister and I had escaped from a large public building, but then this homeless guy with a very large knife started coming after us, and he trapped us in a bathroom and was breaking in, and it was terrifying.

Not every dream has been a nightmare, just those two. But I miss my third person dreaming. It was more interesting and less emotionally taxing.

4 comments:

  1. Huhn.

    I also tend to dream in third person, often morphing in and out of the role of the protagonist, and in the waning minutes of sleep often script outlandish dream-films. My worst "nightmares" are chases where I am running but can only move super slowly, as if through a viscous liquid or dragging a parachute, however I'm never caught. I have never had or seen sex in a dream, usually anything romantic culminates with snuggling or a smooch.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Were you TRYing to put Van Halen in my head with your post title? My husband would be so proud.

    On topic, I usually do dream in first person, but I repeat dreams a lot. I know what's going to happen next, like in a movie I've watched over and over again. Or maybe it just feels that way in the dream.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Russ: See, you know what I mean then. When you dream in third person everything is weirder. In first person it's just like, not as cool.

    Zannah: tell your husband that is EXACTLY what I was doing.
    Also, I think you are actually stuck in a time loop and someone should probably call Dr. Who.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Only if we call the Christopher Eccleston version of Dr. Who. He can help me. With both problems, probably.

    ReplyDelete

Who wants to fuck the Editors?