sometimes a dream (is what makes you a slave)

by mg at 01:41 PM on August 30, 2002

Do you ever sit around trying to analyze your dreams?

Well, not me.

Not because I’m not into self-analysis, because, come on, I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t the Sigmund Freud of self-analysis. No, the only reason I don’t analyze my dreams is because I don’t remember my dreams. It’s sort of a weird thing considering what a vivid imagination I’ve got otherwise.

I spend most of the day daydreaming. Some former roommates used to call their daydreams “Scenarios.” And it wasn’t daydreaming so much as actively creating entire situations, or scenarios, loosely based on reality. This scenario making is something sort of displayed on Ally McBeal (back when the show was really hitting its stride).

When she’d go into her little dream states, with dancing babies and giant tongues, she was creating what we’d independently developed and dubbed “a scenario.” Take the beginnings of an actual event, and spin it out the way we wished it had gone.

It is sort of a sad thing, these scenarios, because I know I’d fall into them so hard-core that I did very actual real living at that point in my life. I’d pass someone on the street, want to say something to them, not say anything to them, and then spend the next twenty minutes imagining all the wonderful things that would have happened if I’d used that snappy opening line I was only able to come up with two blocks too late.

Sometimes my roommates would act out these scenarios with each other, something not really on par with analysis, but very much in the vein of group therapy. At any rate, I don’t experience those sorts of waking dreams anymore. I’ve found it entirely more healthful to act out those scenarios with the actual people involved, rather than creating the whole drama in my head later on. Sure, sometimes I still don’t have the guts to say what I mean to the person I mean it for, and in those cases a little scenario scripting isn’t such a bad thing.

But still, the point is that I don’t remember my sleeping dreams, except for the rare occasion, like this morning. It was so cold out that I woke up on my alarm’s first ring, instead of my usual 40 minutes of snooze hitting.

If a dream is a movie, I came into this one about 20 minutes late, because the first thing I remember is standing in the desert with a good friend, someone who will remain nameless, because, well, in the dream they were. I don’t know how I know, considering this person was entirely imaginary, but they were one of my oldest and closest friends.

We were out on a deserted stretch of highway, in the middle of the desert, standing outside our car, which was obviously all broke down. Why were we in the desert? Well, within the dream, I have no idea, but realistically I can say it had something to do with the fact I’d just watched Bottle Rocket last night, and they have that whole scene with Anthony and Dignan in the desert next to their broke down car. Why I choose that scene to relive in my unconscious state rather than the one where Luke Wilson has sex with the housekeeper, I will never understand and never forgive myself for.

So, my friend and I were standing outside our car, on the side of the road. I look down at something, and when I look up again, all I see is a pair of blue-sleeved arms swinging down at my head. I’m getting hit over and over by something very hard and heavy. I wake up in my dream and it is several months later. I am certain that my friend tried to kill me, but no one, not my family, friends or the police believe me. All that anyone will admit is that someone did try to kill me, which is obvious because here I am, lying the hospital still bruised and battered. The “who” who tried to kill me is still a mystery, to everyone but me.

More time passes, I begin to recover. I see my friend, who I still believe tried to kill me, around in all the usual places. There are all these uncomfortable moments, not made uncomfortable by the fact my friend tried to kill me, but because no one believes my friend tried to kill me. It is very strange, and I begin to feel like Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight.

“Maybe my friend didn’t try to kill me after all,” I think.

For some reason, I work in a sporting goods store (probably because I’d spent the afternoon walking around Manhattan, the real Manhattan, stopping in sporting goods stores looking for a new backpack). It is my first day back after my injury. My real life friend Brion works there too. And so does my dream friend/attempted-murderer, who we’ll call Jim, for the sake of clarity. Brion tries to convince me that no one tried to kill me, that if I was ever to get on with my life, I need to forget about this, and forgive Jim, even though he didn’t do anything.

I contemplate this. As I am thinking, I notice I am wearing a red polo shirt with the name of the sporting good store stitched onto the breast. Brion is wearing a green shirt, also stitched with the name. I scan across the store, and every employee is wearing a different color shirt. I see Jim, and his shirt is blue. Suddenly, I am sure that he did indeed try to kill me. I run across the store, grabbing an aluminum bat as I do. I reach Jim and begin hitting him, each swing of the bat inter-cut with a flashback to Jim’s brutal beating of me. My red-shirted swing down, and in my memory Jim’s blue-shirted swing down too. It is all so suddenly clear to me.

That was when I woke up, for real. And when I did wake up, the knuckles of both hands were scraped and bleeding.