Stumbling Toward God?

I was in the back room of a house of a famous person. “What’s in there?” I asked, pointing to a door that had caught my eye.
“Nothing,” the man grunted. “Telephone directory.”
“I would think that even a telephone directory owned by Hitchcock would be valuable?” I questioned. The wife forced a smile. The man left the room. I knew that they were hiding something.

I went home. J~ was throwing a party in my house and had invited a bunch of her friends whom I did not know. I was annoyed, but tried to remain calm. I tried to explain to a group of people some concept that I had discovered, by making an analogy to ants. “You know how on an ant trail, the ants walking in opposite directions will always touch heads before they pass each other?” I demonstrated with my hands. Touch, pass. People did not know that; they don’t spend much time looking at ant trails. Someone moved a piece of furniture to reveal the floor behind it was teaming with ants. Unfortunately, my pleasure at having this visual aid was greatly overshadowed by, well, the fact that the floor was teaming with ants. The people lost interest and moved to a different room, and I had not even made my point yet about whatever it was that I had been trying to explain.

I had had enough of the party and decided to leave. I went outside and opened the garage door and was surprised to see three strange vehicles besides my truck. The drivers were already in them, and they began to pull out one by one even though I was still standing in the drive way. As each one passed I punched the bumper or fender leaving a sizable dent, all the while shouting about how you can not just show up at a man’s house to a party he did not know about AND park in his garage without even asking. They did not see why it was a problem for me, since there was obviously plenty of room in the garage. I finally got into my own truck, but as I was leaving, a woman jumped out and punched a dent into my bumper. “How do YOU like it?” she screamed, but I did not care anymore, I just wanted to get out of there.

However, I could not go far. The city was in chaos. It was midnight now, and everywhere I looked, people were shooting fireworks, and children were running and playing among piles of debris in the middle of the streets. I tried to drive slowly at first, but quickly decided simply to return home for fear of running over a child. “This isn’t even a real holiday,” I frustratedly exclaimed. “It’s New Year’s in July!” someone answered jubilantly. “That doesn’t make sense… and besides, it’s still JUNE,” I responded, mostly to myself.

I went home and went to bed. I do not know how long I was asleep, if at all. When I got up again, G~ was standing in my room playing a keyboard, and he had dropped an unlit cigarette on the floor. I picked it up and handed it to him, and it was then that I realized that he was not really there. There was a rift in space, and when I turned I could see the crowd for whom he was performing. “Where are you?” I asked. He told me which bar downtown.

Then I was downtown, and it was wall to wall people. While making my way through, I came face to face with a familiar-looking girl and her friend. She knew my name, but could not remember where we had met before. I was certain it was from 20Somethings a long time ago, but did not want to admit it. “Is your name Courtney?” I asked. She told me that it was not, but did not disclose her actually name. I noticed that she had “Carol” tattooed on the side of her neck, but people do not get tattoos of their own name, do they? They usually do that in honor of someone who died, or perhaps a lover, right?

I made my way to a less trafficked area. An audience of Storm Troopers and Darth Vaders with assorted other other cos-players had gathered in an amphitheater in the graveyard to watch the midnight show. “But there will no be midnight show,” I thought, “The hour has already past.” But just as I was climbing into a tree to see what would happen next, the leprechauns arrived dressed as characters from the works of Dr. Seuss and the play began.

I moved to the back of the audience to take a seat with my mother, who was not my mother at all, because they all thought I was someone else; someone they had nicknamed “Mr. Dweebey”, because when he was small his mother would put him in the case where they kept the pipe organ keys, and he would crawl along and hit them with his knees.

And I raced home to write this dream down before I forgot it all. I brought my convertible skidding to a halt sideways in my driveway. And I noticed that the red light was lit on the dashboard, indicating that the LoJack had been activated, and the police would be arriving soon. Only they probably wouldn’t, because I had stopped paying the bill. But just in case, I decided that I had better take anything important out of the car before the police arrived. I had already started making notes as the dream was rapidly fading. How do you spell “Dewebey” [sic]? I thought there were more ‘e’s? Then the phone was ringing, and at this hour, it could only be the police, but it was actually a recorded telemarketer, with an interesting tale to tell. I had to reconnect my answering machine so I could listen to it later. I went back out to the car and noticed that my iBook was still on the seat. That would have been a great loss indeed had the police impounded the car.

Last night I dreamt of evil. Not the normal running/chasing sort of evil that usually appears in dreams. I dreamt of two superimposed realities. It was sort of like taking on and off special filtered glasses, and I could see that seemingly innocent, or at least innocuous, people were actually evil, demonic in fact. And they were everywhere, and I could not tell which reality was true. I woke up terrified, and I had to go to the bathroom but I did not want to leave the safety of my bed; to leave my room and step out into the dark hallway. I did though, because, you know, I am not six years old.

Then I went back to sleep and dreamt of some kind of business complex with a tower. Someone was trying to pull a heist of some sort. (By “someone” of course I mean myself and Bart, possibly also Homer, Simpson.) We were hiding on some kind of balcony or platform overlooking a room, and threw some kind of special light bulbs down onto the floor, in order to distract my father who was working in the room below. Then I jumped into a five story tall, wooden, spiraling escape slide.

Whatever. Let’s get to the good part.

Some (unspecified) uncle of mine was going to be getting married to a woman who happened to have a famous relative. Neither of them is really important, other than to set up a context for my meeting with one Lady Gaga, who was soon to be my step-niece or cousin-in-law or whatever. Now, I do not know about you, but I personally know exactly two things about the Lady Gaga: that she consistently wears the strangest outfits imaginable, and that you can not read her poker face. So my slumbering mind had to invent some details. I met Miss Gaga, appropriately enough, at the Y Circus. In my dream, she was a 14 year old girl. [And if I may be so bold as to speculate just one more thing about the real life Lady Gaga, I am almost positive that she is older than 14.] She had pink hair and whatever your definition for “too much” makeup for a 14 year old, she wore more than that. She did seem like a sweet young lady, although it was almost impossible to talk to her because she went everywhere with an entourage of four or five other girls (handmaidens perhaps?) and an older matronly woman as a chaperone. Also, she had magic confetti given to her by a wizard that was the source of all of her powers. I seemed to be the only one around who thought that this was friggin’ insane probably not true. Later though, on the tour bus ride to I-have-no-idea-where, the chaperone pulled me aside and politely but firmly informed me that, silly as it may be, under no circumstances was I to publicly criticize the magic confetti. Pretty sure the Lady and her followers all believed in it though.

In some cultures, dreams are important. They may be a connection with the spirit world or reveal greater truth than the waking world. In the Bible, Jacob dreamed of ladder to Heaven. His son, Joseph, was the king of dreams. Another Joseph was told in a dream that his wife to be was with child by the Holy Spirit, then later told to flee to Egypt. God spoke to others in dreams: Pilate’s wife, Cornelius, Abimelech, and others.

In our culture, dreams not so important. Some would say they are little more than the brain entertaining itself. I generally believe that dreams tell you what’s really going on inside yourself, where the lies you tell yourself and others have no hold. I kept a record of my dreams for a period, but like all things, I lost interest after awhile.

A few nights ago I dreamed that I proposed to an eligible young lady. One of those people that you know in the dream, but upon waking you find yourself asking, “Wait… who was that supposed to be?” But though in the dream I knew her, I did not know her well. She was someone from Bible study group, but with whom I had little interaction outside of that. Yet I proposed, in accordance with my previously admitted poorly conceived master plan. There followed a terribly long silence. I had plenty of time to think of how this was the worst idea I’d ever had, and now I’d actually gone and done. Fortunately she is certain to say no, and the whole business will be done with. I eventually became so embarrassed that I could no longer face her and hid behind something like a shopping cart (but not exactly) such that I was only looking at her through a long metal tube. Then her eye appeared at the opposite end. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s give it a shot.” That was not the answer I expected. We are actually going to do this.

Then the dream changed. I was in the front row at some kind of aquatic stunt show with some of my friends. But before the show even began, Penn (of Penn and Teller), dressed as a pirate, came and told me that I could not sit there. While my friends stayed put, I went to the back of the theater, which happened to be where the AV techs were stationed. Somehow I was chosen to be one of about a dozen or so audience participation members and was being taken backstage. We were told that we were required to wear life-jackets, but I somehow was separated from the group while looking for one. I also had some kind of interaction with the prop-master, the details of which I do not remember. Then I remembered that I was engaged to that girl. It had been three days and I had not seen her or called her or anything. What kind of a jerk am I? She has probably told everyone she knows by now and me… I had not told anyone at all, even these guys I was with today. Was it too late to call this whole thing off?

I share that for entertainment. Most of my dreams of late have been of a different sort. Over the past few weeks, I have had half a dozen or more dreams about a certain someone from the past. Things were not left on the best of terms. I dream about pride, and the distance between us. The question is, why now? It’s been years… what would you have me do?

My heart is crippled by the vein that I keep on closing
You cut me open and I
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding
Love
–Leona Lewis

Strange as it seems
There’s been a run of crazy dreams
And a man who can interpret could go far
…Could become a star
– Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

For the last few months I have been having a lot of vivid dreams. Almost everyday I wake up and think, now what was that all about? Often there will be a random appearance by someone I have not seen in a long time. They usually play no significant part in the dream, they just happen to be there. A couple of the dreams were oddly in third person, like watching a movie. Most of them, if not outright disturbing in violence or content, are puzzling that such things would be on my mind at all. I do not recall all of the details now, but…

I dreamt:

• … that there had been a mistake, and my mother was really alive after all. But we had already had funerals; we spread ashes… I had to ask the obvious question, where on earth had she been for the last nine months? [Of course, upon waking, what nine months?! It's been three years!]
• … that I became so depressed, that I decided to lie under a table and never move again.
• … that I was at a party with my church group, and I decided to slip out, and never go home, choosing instead to live on the streets. This dream then changed so that it no longer involved me at all, but instead, twin teenage girls one of whom ran away as before, the other living life as normal. They met again years later in a restaurant, where there was some instance of child abuse involving some of other the patrons. The “normal” girl was unable to act, but the girl hardened by life on the street did not hesitate to attack, and possibly kill, the offending parent.
• … that I returned to my job at the YMCA, but I could not remember how to do anything. I don’t recall the details now, but something I was working on kept accidentally banging into the wall, which eventually caused the entire building to collapse.
• … that one of the ladies in my church group became engaged to, as it turned out, a childhood friend of hers from “back home.” Panicked by what I perceived to be a rapidly decreasing number of eligible ladies, I was prompted to become engaged myself to someone whom I had previously been reluctant to approach.
• … that I was in a play at Prospect Park. A certain ex-girlfriend with long red hair was there. (Do I even have an ex-girlfriend with long red hair?) But I was not exactly clear on my roll, and failed to go onstage at all when I was supposed to. The play seemed to carry on without me though, and [as above], I lay down backstage and never wanted to move again.
• … of a boy who went away to visit someone or other. While there, the malicious neighbor boys attempted to kill him, yet he survived, and grew up to be a mass murderer using Star Wars level technology that he had invented himself. However, at the very end, someone discovered that his black trench coat was actually an alien life form that was controlling his mind.
• … of a carnival where one of the attractions was for people to go into an underground room where they would somehow be launched into the air and fly for a long way until landing in a swimming pool. I wanted to do it, but I had missed the last available sign up time. Then I encountered my uberexgirlfriend, if you will, an amalgamation of all of them without being any one. She had previously been covered in black body paint for some reason. Someone else had cleaned most of it off of her, but she came to me to get a few parts that were missed, in particular the backs of her knees. However, she was so skinny that I could see her bones and I was repulsed.
• … of an astronaut who had lost some bet with Buzz Aldrin. As a result, he could never leave his house, and apparently, not use the bathroom either. He would therefore urinate in bottles, and because he was a famous astronaut, people could take him a bottle or glass and get some souvenir urine. I was surprised to discover that my sister had acquired three champagne glasses of the stuff.
• … of a road trip with several of the guys from my church group. At one point, we were sitting down in a booth at a restaurant, when out of nowhere that guy with the fro said, “Maybe you still have a chance with _____.” Instinctively, we all turned to her brother [who coincidently had not been part of the dream until that very moment.] He merely shrugged a sort of “Could be, what do I know?” look. Even in the dream I was confused and responded, “Man, that was like a year ago. Why would you even bring that up?”
• … that I was at a Stater Bros up in Forest Falls. A crew was filming a “test scene” for the new Batman movie. A stuntman drove a motorcycle down one of the aisles, through a checkout lane and out the door. The people who were shopping at the time were offered small parts in the movie to compensate for the inconvenience. When I was giving my contact information, I stated my cell phone number, but then I could not for the life of me remember my address, or even whether I had recently moved to a place in the mountains or still lived down in Redlands.
• … that something was happening at the Redlands Bowl, but I don’t remember anything about that part. When it was over, I went back to my new apartment, which was located underneath the library. Strangely, though I had obviously already rented it, and my stuff was already moved in, I had never actually seen it or been inside myself. First I had to figure out how to actually get to it, and I had to hurry, as the library was imminently closing. I wander through the library, at one point coming across a small room set up in a colonial era style. Someone I knew from the circus was there in a rocking chair, but I did not particularly want to talk to her so I hurried on. Eventually I found a stairwell leading down to my apartment. Upon entering, the kitchen was quite normal. The rest of the apartment featured an elaborate series of rooms of various heights (or perhaps I should say “lowths”), some of which I had to stoop through, and some I actually had to crawl through on my stomach. Each room had some sort of task that I had to complete before going on to the next. The only ones I can remember now was a room filled with tiny musical instruments, in which I had to play a song on a violin about six inches long; and the final room had a gigantic stuffed hippopotamus with a smooth pink body made of vinyl or whatever and furry white limbs and head. It turned out it was alive and refused to let me pass so I had to tickle it into submission.
• … that I was at a party and received a short text-message apology from a female acquaintance. I did not understand it at first, but it gradually became clear that I had asked her out and she had turned me down, but now had changed her mind. Unfortunately, at this party, I was already on the way toward hooking up with a different girl. So I was left in a very awkward situation, made all the more urgent by the fact that this other girl was, um, pressuring me to do something that I was actually quite comfortable with.
• … that I was a Chinese guy (but not the main one) in the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Frequently present in scenes throughout the movie, but contributing absolutely nothing to the plot.
• … on Christmas Day [as, indeed, it would have been if I were awake] that as we were gathering (for whatever reason) in my sister’s bed room, my father said simply, “Kathy,” and my mother stepped in through the window. But, (having apparently learned something from last time, I guess) I refused to believe that this actually was my mother and I would not talk to this impostor. Later, my grandmother arrived, at which point I decided that my whole understanding of life and death and basically reality itself was inherently flawed.
• … that for some reason I was taking a shower somewhere other than my house
  . As I was almost finished I realized that without my noticing, that water level had risen to about shoulder level. The tiled basin part was set into the ground such that there were a few steps leading down to it, but still, the water level should never have been able to get that high without overflowing. I then discovered that around the top edges was almost invisible plexiglass, which I had somehow stepped over without ever knowing was there. There was also plexiglass covering the drain. Like this shower was designed to drown people?
• … that a certain doctor friend of mine informed me that one could become a taste tester for Little Caesar’s, and instead of paying for your pizza, they would pay you $50 to try whatever new thing they had. So I went there, but this was not something they advertised or even discussed. I guess there was code word or phrase or something, and I had no idea what it was. So I left. Incidentally, I had bought a new drum set that I had left at someone’s house and needed to go get, but for some reason I was now walking home with my truck still back at Little Caesar’s. So I decided it was best to continue home, get my bike, go back to get my truck, then go get the drum set, which would have been a fine plan except that now it was starting to rain, which is obviously detrimental to walking, biking, and transporting drumsets.
• … that I was at a Jeopardy show. I was not actually one of the contestants, but some other people and I were still standing onstage. One of the contestants picked a clue which led to a secret bonus round where everyone had to sing. Everyone also had a handfull of dry spaghetti noodles that they had to wave in the air at a certain part of the song. If the contestant could get everyone to do it correctly, he would win.
• … [my absolute favorite of the lot] that I had returned from college to the house where I grew up, except that there had been some sort of major disaster and the whole area [whether it be the city, state, or entire country, I'm not sure] was without power and people were being shot in the streets. There was a very pregnant lady]at the house, and the child was either mine or a relative of hers that had sexually abuse her. However, we told people it was mine because she became (understandably) very upset when I tried to explain this to someone else. [Yeah, even in my own dreams I'm an insensitive prick.] A guy arrived at the house and informed us that there was a medical unit set up on the next block, but the only way to get there was to walk, because no one had gasoline anymore. Reluctantly we went, knowing that there was a strong possibility of getting shot along the way. [I was extremely disappointed to wake up from that one, because, Holy Crap! Living in a world like that a man would have THINGS TO DO.]

I could not help but wonder, amongst this weirdness and parade of randomness, how come I never dream of that person. But finally… I dreamt that she had a boyfriend. He had a two foot long piece of black metal stuck through his abdomen, which signified that he was an agent of some important organization. It did not actually inhibit his movement in any way, it was simply “The Sign.” He seemed like an honorable fellow so, uh, good for her I guess.

I had a dream a week or so ago. I was in some kind of theater or lecture hall – something with tiered seating. There was a fellow in the row behind me, he does have a name in real life, but for the sake of argument, let’s call him November. He was trying unsuccessfully to get the attention of the young lady sitting in the row in front of me, and he had a letter for her. acquainted with her myself, I got her attention by poking her in the back with (of all things) a shampoo bottle. She turned around and I indicated my friend behind me and his envelope. I can’t remember what happened to the letter at this point. I guess she must of taken it, but I don’t think she read it. Instead she turned to the guy sitting next to her, (I’ll call him December) and put both her hands on his near shoulder and lay her head on them, hanging on every word he said. I remember feeling sorry for Mr. November. But anyway, it’s January now, and it’s about time to move on.

Last night I dreamt that I was getting Baptized again. It seemed to be in a backyard swimming pool. A small boy went before me. They wanted to make it quick, because he was freezing. Then it was my turn. Then the baptizer turned to me. He knew me, but I did not recognize him. (A situation which has literally happened to me at least four times in the past month.) He reached out to me with a very hairy arm. He asked me a question that in the dream I did not understand, and now I do not remember, but it had something to do with the audience, and I responded with something like, “You mean, these people?” My mother was there, as before.

Then, instead of bracing me with his arm and lowering me into the water, he simply gave me a shove on the chest, and I fell over backwards and sank immediately to the bottom. I lay there on the bottom of the pool wondering, “Is he going to come pull me out again, or what?” Finally, I could wait no longer, and frantically swam back up on my own, breaking surface into the waking world.

A few nights ago I had a dream. It was at my uncle’s house, or at least, some dream-house that supposedly belonged to my (maternal) uncle. All of my cousins were there, including my cousin with her baby (small child?) that I have never seen, and another cousin who (in the dream) had just been released from prison. My parents were there, with my mother cancer-free. Then my grandparents arrived. I don’t know if my grandfather leaves the nursing home much in real life, but in my dream he never did, so this was a momentous occasion. He did not actually know who I was without some prompting, but that is not unusual. He did however, recognize my sister as his “#1 Granddaughter,” and he was so delighted to see everyone gathered together, I was moved to tears, which I naturally tried to hide, while the ending of “If You Leave” by OMD kept playing through my head.

Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Oh oh oh …If you leave…

Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Oh oh oh …If you leave…

Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Oh oh oh …Don’t look back!