DREAMS TO REMEMBER

The boredom cannot be surpassed. There is nothing quite like nothing. You look around you for something to keep your attention, something to entertain and pass the time. You wish there were some pressing issue that demanded your full attention and brainpower. Well maybe not all your brainpower but at least some of it. Your fingers tap mindlessly on the keyboard in some sort of attempt to produce something vaguely worthwhile. In fact, your main goal is simply to make life bearable. If something of substance comes forth you will undoubtedly be happy but it doesn’t really matter if it does or not. All you want to do is listen to the melodic tap-tap-tapping of the keys. It allows you to zone into some kind of hypnotic trance and the random thoughts in your head simply come out. What they are doesn’t matter. They could be nothing; they could be dreamlike fragments of memories past. It doesn’t matter. Time is slipping by.

Last night I dreamt I was in a boardroom. There was some sort of project that needed to get done and I was new at the table. Everyone else had been working on the project forever and what they were talking about made no sense to me. I don’t think it mattered though. I was merely taking minutes, or so I thought, until my opinion was asked. I had nothing to say. I was frozen in time and empty of mind. Two people next to me got up to have sex in the bathroom. I didn’t see it but somehow I knew that was what was happening. I don’t know how I knew other than the fact that it was my dream and, therefore, my world so I knew. The tapping has stopped. My mind went numb. When the people came back they came alone, they thought it was less suspicious that way. I still didn’t know what to do with the project. I don’t remember what the project was. It had charts and graphs and colors, maybe it was a weather map. I have no idea.

I hate when you have dreams that you can’t remember. I suppose we don’t remember the vast majority of our dreams. I always thought about keeping a dream journal but then got to sleepy to remember to put something down by my bed to write in when I wake. I don’t know if it would make a difference though. But then again I think that it would because we always remember our dreams better right after waking, if we are to remember them at all.

There are a few dreams that I always remember. Those with the Blue Meanies. I don’t remember how old I was when my parents took me to a double feature of Yellow Submarine and The Point but I feel I must have been quite young. Maybe five or so? I remember that as if it were a dream itself. It’s all in sepia tones except for the colors on the screen. They are vibrant. There was music and singing and stories. It invaded my dreams for years.

The Blue Meanies in dream world aren’t nice at all. They aren’t cute and funny and mean like in the movie. They are horrible ogres with sharp teeth (I guess they were sharp in the film too) and they want nothing more than to eat and torture small children. They took their hatred of love to a new level in my subconscious. In the first of my reoccurring Meanie dreams, the Meanies capture all of the children in the world and hold them in cages under the ocean. Somehow I am able to escape from my cage and have to save all the children of the world. I am doing pretty well when those awful Meanies start to come after me. I seem to lose hope but notice there is a drain at the bottom of the ocean. If I open the drain then the Meanies will be sucked down. Somehow I get word to the parents of the kidnapped children and they come down to help me free them. When the drain opens the Meanies are sucked inside, but so are some of the parents and some of the children. Although many were saved there were some I could do nothing for. Children left without parents, parents left without children and of course there was not happy ending where they just met up with someone and went home to start a family. Instead there was crying and misery and blame, on me. Some of the time I would get sucked down the drain too and wake up and want to cry. Sometimes I would.

The second, and worst of the Blue Meanie dreams focused on me and Shoshana, my little sister. We arrived on a world where there was the most wonderful amusement park across an enormous chasm and we wanted nothing more than to play there. Unfortunately, it was guarded by the biggest ugliest Meanie you ever saw. Luckily for us, there was a wooden plank on chains above the Meanie’s head and we were able to climb onto it and swing over the chasm and play and play until we had out fill. All we had to do was go back over the chasm and get into our spaceship and go home. Invariably, while we were crossing some of the chains would snap and little Shoshana would fall off the plank, straight into the mouth of the Meanie. He would gobble her up so fast and start licking his chops for me. I was crushed. I couldn’t let him do that to my sister. I jumped up and down on the plank until all the chains broke and the plank fell down and squished the Meanie. I had avenged her, but she was still gone. She was mine to protect and I failed her. I would wake up scared, sometimes peek down to the bottom bunk and make sure that she was ok. She always was.

Why as a young child did I feel I was responsible for saving the world from loveless creatures from hell? What kind of responsibility did I think I had to the world? It makes sense that I wanted to be a Dr. growing up. It makes sense now that I am trying to make people’s live more economically viable. It makes sense that I want to educate those who need the most education. It all makes sense but what was the trigger? What drove me to this path of fighting uphill battles and feeling that failure in my endeavors is inevitable? Not personally failure of course, I feel I do good work and am proud of it. I am thinking more of general societal failure. It’s so depressing.

How did I get to this? I suppose that’s what you get when you just type the thoughts that are coming into your mind. Maybe I am Ulysses. I told one of my co-workers about it and she said that it made sense why I couldn’t read the book because I was battling myself. Battling my own consciousness and thoughts. I thought that was incredibly interesting. How much of an obstacle am I to myself? Probably a huge one. I have all kinds of ideas and plans and goals but I just don’t do anything about them. I am far too content with the status quo even though I complain about it constantly. How can someone be content with something that drives them crazy? I don’t understand. I need to get a move on and go to school and do something with myself. It tires me out too much to even think about it sometimes. For a person who does absolutely nothing as often as possible I sure am exhausted. Maybe I have mono. I’m not that tired though. I’m tired mentally. That makes absolutely no sense because my brain is never challenged anymore. Maybe that is why it is so tired? Maybe that is why I can’t read Ulysses? I have gotten stupid, complacent, and dull. Or maybe the book just doesn’t make any damn sense and needs to get over itself? Maybe I need to get over myself? It’s all far too complicated.
Let me stop this madness, I actually have to go do some work for about ten minutes. Segue to songs.

Santeria, Sublime- This now reminds me of the most horrible SVU I ever saw. Where they were importing children from Nigeria to be sold into slavery either for labor or sex. This poor boy was killed and cut up in an attempt to frame those who practice Santeria in his murder. Law and Order doesn’t have me in tears often but this episode just ripped my heart out.

Coffee Shop, Red Hot Chili Peppers- why is it that I have decided that One Hot Minute is a good album I didn’t like it all that much when it came out but I really enjoy it now. Maybe because we change as we get older. That’s a real obvious thing to say.

Greatest American Hero Theme Song- Okay, this is quite possibly the greatest theme song ever. Not only because of the whole Seinfield phone message thing and how my friend Robin also adopted it for her message. Simply because it is just one of the most uplifting sings a loser could ever listen to.