Three of the most boring things in the world to hear people talk about are their dreams, their ailments, and their children. (YMMV--and for some those last two are the same thing. Hiyo!) Thanks to the more or less unanimous opinion of every person I've dated, you've been spared the third today, so I'll just have to double down on the first two. Me and my wisdom teeth, after the break.
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Just Put the Ball Down
Nothing sets the tone for a day like dreaming about high school gym class. A person should never have to say to another human being "you are taking dodgeball too seriously."
Later Days.
Later Days.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Reveries of a Solitary Dreamer
I dreamed last night that a friend of mine was dating Tik-Tok, He was the mechnical man from the third Wizard of Oz book. He looked like this:
We all had to be really polite about it, because she was self-conscious about dating a fictional character.
Later Days.
Later Days.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Maybe Muppets vs. Jason?
I had a crossover dream last night: DuckTales vs. Aliens. The ones from the Alien movies. I can't really think of a more inappropriate mash-up.
Later Days.
Later Days.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Mentally Loop the Theme to the Odd Couple While You Read this One
So I went to see a doctor the other day. I'm sitting in the waiting room, and a woman with the prerequisite lab coat and clipboard comes up to me. "Person of Consequence?" she asks. I answer, and the doctor quickly does a double take. I, in response, immediately blush. You see, this is not my first trip to the doctor in recent times; I had recently become something of a hypochondriac, checking in on every hint of a flush or sniffle. "What seems to be the problem?" she asks, clearly articulating carefully to remove the tone of skepticism from her voice.
Right then and there, I nearly bolt. It seems so stupid. "I... um... I think have a really bad cold." Even to my ears, it sounds pathetic. "But I'm not feeling it right now, so I think I'll just... go..."
The doctor puts a hand to her temple and removes it, with a weary flick of the wrist. "Nonsense." For a moment, I'm not sure if she's addressing my claim of illness or my intent to depart. "You're here now, so let's be safe and run a few tests."
"A few" quickly multiplies into a myriad. The doctor escorts me from room to room, and I immerse myself in the hospital gossip. The big story seems to be that a doctor is avoiding a nurse after an awkward one night stand. I think I even catch a glimpse of the troubled couple--doctor fleeing while trying to look like he wasn't fleeing, nurse coldly aloof--during my parade of the stations. Scintillating. My primary health provider appears to be a subsidiary of Grey's Anatomy.
Meanwhile, my own case seems to be worsening. The doctor acting as shepherd gets more somber as she studies the result of each test. There are many conversations with other labcoat-frocked individuals, conducted in low tones beyond my hearing, with concerned, darting glances in my direction. It seems to take hours, most of them spent in anxious contemplation of my mortality. Finally, the doctor tells me that the tests are finished, and asks me to sit down. "It's bad," she says, bluntly, and embarks on a longstanding voyage of obscure scientific jargon. "You'll have to stay here at least a week for observation," she includes. "In fact, I'm about to go away for a few days, so it'll probably be two weeks..."
"Two weeks?" I say, incredulous. "Because YOU can't be here? I came in with a friggin' (Note: I did not say "friggin'") cold! This is ridiculous! It's..." I trail off, suspicion dawning. "I'm perfectly fine, aren't I? You're just messing with me for wasting your time."
And that moment, the doctor, the doctors standing nearby, the nurses, and the patients all burst into laughter. Then a fellow grad student walks in, and tells me he can't find his class. And my mother follows close behind, telling us we're both going to be late.
And then I wake up.
Yeah, so there was no doctor, no repeated trips to the hospital. I'm in perfect health, relatively speaking. A story whose moral was apparently that I shouldn't waste people's time has culminated in a rather large wasting of yours. But here's what I found interesting: I've accumulated so many hours of television watching over my lifespan that I now appear to be dreaming in stock sitcom plots. It even had a sexy B plot.
Actually, I might be on to something here. I'm pretty sure this was how Larry David came up with the last season of Seinfeld.
Right then and there, I nearly bolt. It seems so stupid. "I... um... I think have a really bad cold." Even to my ears, it sounds pathetic. "But I'm not feeling it right now, so I think I'll just... go..."
The doctor puts a hand to her temple and removes it, with a weary flick of the wrist. "Nonsense." For a moment, I'm not sure if she's addressing my claim of illness or my intent to depart. "You're here now, so let's be safe and run a few tests."
"A few" quickly multiplies into a myriad. The doctor escorts me from room to room, and I immerse myself in the hospital gossip. The big story seems to be that a doctor is avoiding a nurse after an awkward one night stand. I think I even catch a glimpse of the troubled couple--doctor fleeing while trying to look like he wasn't fleeing, nurse coldly aloof--during my parade of the stations. Scintillating. My primary health provider appears to be a subsidiary of Grey's Anatomy.
Meanwhile, my own case seems to be worsening. The doctor acting as shepherd gets more somber as she studies the result of each test. There are many conversations with other labcoat-frocked individuals, conducted in low tones beyond my hearing, with concerned, darting glances in my direction. It seems to take hours, most of them spent in anxious contemplation of my mortality. Finally, the doctor tells me that the tests are finished, and asks me to sit down. "It's bad," she says, bluntly, and embarks on a longstanding voyage of obscure scientific jargon. "You'll have to stay here at least a week for observation," she includes. "In fact, I'm about to go away for a few days, so it'll probably be two weeks..."
"Two weeks?" I say, incredulous. "Because YOU can't be here? I came in with a friggin' (Note: I did not say "friggin'") cold! This is ridiculous! It's..." I trail off, suspicion dawning. "I'm perfectly fine, aren't I? You're just messing with me for wasting your time."
And that moment, the doctor, the doctors standing nearby, the nurses, and the patients all burst into laughter. Then a fellow grad student walks in, and tells me he can't find his class. And my mother follows close behind, telling us we're both going to be late.
And then I wake up.
Yeah, so there was no doctor, no repeated trips to the hospital. I'm in perfect health, relatively speaking. A story whose moral was apparently that I shouldn't waste people's time has culminated in a rather large wasting of yours. But here's what I found interesting: I've accumulated so many hours of television watching over my lifespan that I now appear to be dreaming in stock sitcom plots. It even had a sexy B plot.
Actually, I might be on to something here. I'm pretty sure this was how Larry David came up with the last season of Seinfeld.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
COMPlicated dreaming
Depending on whether my fickle home modem is working tonight, there will later be two Comic Book Wednesday Panel posts. One features Satan with Sideburns (and they're totally worthy of the Capital), so stick around for that.
For now, though, I just wanted everyone to know I had my first comp-mare for the multimedia exam. As a life-long student, I've resigned myself to the knowledge that I will never entirely leave the phase of my life where my dreams revolve around the classroom. This dream, though, I can do without. For some reason, I was writing the exam back in Wherever, with the rest of my high school class. My Blank professor hands me the exam, and it's a comic book panel featuring Desaad talking to Jean Grey. (It took me a dozen images to find a pic of Jean Grey that didn't feel entirely like low level porn. That concern didn't come up with Desaad, for some reason.) There was no question, just a single word: "discuss."
Now, let's put aside the fact that, belonging to two opposing companies, Desaad and Jean Grey have never and probably will never, have a face-to-face chat. The simple truth is, I should be able to do this. Even putting aside my decades of comic lore, there are some theorists I've read in the past 4 months that help with this. First and foremost, there's Scott McCloud, and Understanding Comics: I can talk about the use of time in comics, the framing, and whether a single panel constitutes a comic or not. From there, I can move on to traditional treatments of image and text, as described in W. J. T. Mitchell's Iconography. Or how this panel works in terms of Edward Tufte's Visualizing Information. Or I could go another direction entirely and talk about the use of vast narratives in multimedia form, ala Third Person. The point is, I have tools for this.
Instead, in the dream, my mind's a complete blank, and I go through a panic so intense that I wake myself up. Ugh. A whole month of this, huh? Well, I could always give up sleep again. Worked for the last comp...
Later Days.
For now, though, I just wanted everyone to know I had my first comp-mare for the multimedia exam. As a life-long student, I've resigned myself to the knowledge that I will never entirely leave the phase of my life where my dreams revolve around the classroom. This dream, though, I can do without. For some reason, I was writing the exam back in Wherever, with the rest of my high school class. My Blank professor hands me the exam, and it's a comic book panel featuring Desaad talking to Jean Grey. (It took me a dozen images to find a pic of Jean Grey that didn't feel entirely like low level porn. That concern didn't come up with Desaad, for some reason.) There was no question, just a single word: "discuss."
Now, let's put aside the fact that, belonging to two opposing companies, Desaad and Jean Grey have never and probably will never, have a face-to-face chat. The simple truth is, I should be able to do this. Even putting aside my decades of comic lore, there are some theorists I've read in the past 4 months that help with this. First and foremost, there's Scott McCloud, and Understanding Comics: I can talk about the use of time in comics, the framing, and whether a single panel constitutes a comic or not. From there, I can move on to traditional treatments of image and text, as described in W. J. T. Mitchell's Iconography. Or how this panel works in terms of Edward Tufte's Visualizing Information. Or I could go another direction entirely and talk about the use of vast narratives in multimedia form, ala Third Person. The point is, I have tools for this.
Instead, in the dream, my mind's a complete blank, and I go through a panic so intense that I wake myself up. Ugh. A whole month of this, huh? Well, I could always give up sleep again. Worked for the last comp...
Later Days.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
A Day in the Life of a Person of Consequence
Happy Green Irish Day! Yeah, I figure we should call it what it is. Of course, if you want to be entirely accurate about that, you probably need to add "Excuse to Drink in the Middle of Week" day.
As you may guess from that cheery introduction, I am not in a great mood. In fact, my state is that of one of the worst sleep combinations (The Blogger spellchecker doesn't recognize the plural of combination. Honestly, people. We can do better.): I've got the weariness of the sleep-deprived, and the grumpiness of the just recently awakened. And considering it's 3 pm, I got some 'splainin' to do.
First, as you have no doubt noticed, I haven't posted a running update in a few days. This filled me with great shame (as is the point), and I got up at 6:00 am today to go for a run. Sadly, due to my own special brand of asthmatic insomnia, I didn't get more than about 4 hours of sleep. The run itself was great, if consequential. I nearly slipped on a banana peel, and if I was in a different mood, we'd be discussing how my life is that of a cartoon character. In my current mood, this would degenerate into a rant on how no one watches the classic Looney Tunes any more, and how children are now forced to watch the mediocre. (Look at ABC's morning line-up: That's So Raven, Hannah Montana, The Suite Life of Zach & Cody. Honestly, as a kid, if there was that little animation in MY Saturday morning cartoons, I'd wonder why I was being punished.)
Right, so after the run, I perform my morning ablations, write up a lesson plan for tomorrow, accidentally delete the lesson, decide that I could probably reconstruct it from memory in a few hours, run some errands, and I'm at the university by 10:00. I read and transcribe my notes for a chapter from my comp (and laugh ruefully at the pathetic standard by which I currently judge being "productive"). Then it's up to my office for a brief lunch (apple, green apple flavored licorice, and apple juice. Yeah, I don't know what happened there), and a chapter from Kafka's The Trial. When you're in an academic building, Kafka's portrayal of bureaucracy becomes less "amusing" and more "deeply depressing and existentially horrifying."
At this point, approximately 1:30, I fall asleep. I wake up at a quarter to 3. I had a strange dream, even by my standards: I dreamed I had stumbled into an alternate reality where parents were honor-bound to murder their children if they failed to achieve something the parent deemed appropriate for the child. But the values were really esoteric, like if the child had worn enough blue over the course of a year. It was basically a combination of personal aesthetics and eugenics. I remembered thinking in the dream that this would make a good short story, if I could get the style right. And then I woke up, and typed out this entry.
And there you go. One day. -ish. I suppose it's possible I may do something of interest in the course of the next 8 or so hours, but given my current urge to bike home and bury my head under the covers, it seems unlikely.
Wednesday's Run:
Title: the Needle
Distance: 11.9 km
Time: 1 h, 7 minutes.
Average Speed: 10.66 km/hr
Later Days.
PS. I'm not really this annoyed at the world in general. "Grumpy" is a fun persona to slip on, but I wouldn't want to live there.
As you may guess from that cheery introduction, I am not in a great mood. In fact, my state is that of one of the worst sleep combinations (The Blogger spellchecker doesn't recognize the plural of combination. Honestly, people. We can do better.): I've got the weariness of the sleep-deprived, and the grumpiness of the just recently awakened. And considering it's 3 pm, I got some 'splainin' to do.
First, as you have no doubt noticed, I haven't posted a running update in a few days. This filled me with great shame (as is the point), and I got up at 6:00 am today to go for a run. Sadly, due to my own special brand of asthmatic insomnia, I didn't get more than about 4 hours of sleep. The run itself was great, if consequential. I nearly slipped on a banana peel, and if I was in a different mood, we'd be discussing how my life is that of a cartoon character. In my current mood, this would degenerate into a rant on how no one watches the classic Looney Tunes any more, and how children are now forced to watch the mediocre. (Look at ABC's morning line-up: That's So Raven, Hannah Montana, The Suite Life of Zach & Cody. Honestly, as a kid, if there was that little animation in MY Saturday morning cartoons, I'd wonder why I was being punished.)
Right, so after the run, I perform my morning ablations, write up a lesson plan for tomorrow, accidentally delete the lesson, decide that I could probably reconstruct it from memory in a few hours, run some errands, and I'm at the university by 10:00. I read and transcribe my notes for a chapter from my comp (and laugh ruefully at the pathetic standard by which I currently judge being "productive"). Then it's up to my office for a brief lunch (apple, green apple flavored licorice, and apple juice. Yeah, I don't know what happened there), and a chapter from Kafka's The Trial. When you're in an academic building, Kafka's portrayal of bureaucracy becomes less "amusing" and more "deeply depressing and existentially horrifying."
At this point, approximately 1:30, I fall asleep. I wake up at a quarter to 3. I had a strange dream, even by my standards: I dreamed I had stumbled into an alternate reality where parents were honor-bound to murder their children if they failed to achieve something the parent deemed appropriate for the child. But the values were really esoteric, like if the child had worn enough blue over the course of a year. It was basically a combination of personal aesthetics and eugenics. I remembered thinking in the dream that this would make a good short story, if I could get the style right. And then I woke up, and typed out this entry.
And there you go. One day. -ish. I suppose it's possible I may do something of interest in the course of the next 8 or so hours, but given my current urge to bike home and bury my head under the covers, it seems unlikely.
Wednesday's Run:
Title: the Needle
Distance: 11.9 km
Time: 1 h, 7 minutes.
Average Speed: 10.66 km/hr
Later Days.
PS. I'm not really this annoyed at the world in general. "Grumpy" is a fun persona to slip on, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
What Happens When I Can't Get Back To Sleep? This is What Happens When I Can't Get Back to Sleep
I was talking to someone today about I sometimes feel like I lead a very sheltered life, and I'd like to do something to change it. She pointed out that I don't really have a leg to stand on here, since I've got a mild aversion to actually going places and doing things. It's true: given a choice, I'd generally rather stay home more often than not. There's a few reasons for this: I really like stories, which are generally stationary things; I come from a pretty sedentary small town, and staying in is habit-forming; and, in my defense, my apartment is pretty awesome.
Presumably, though, the question was still weighing heavy on my mind when I went to bed a few hours ago, because I think it's behind one of my dreams. I'm attending some sort of Farmer's Market with my parents, and I'm stopped at the entrance: I need to pay the entry fee. I shout ahead to my parents, because I thought they were paying for me. They were not. I ask how much the fee is, and I'm told $9. Upon hearing this, I get so frustrated I wake up.
First, $9 for entering an outdoors farmer's market? That's ridiculous. And the reason I was upset was because $9 was all I had brought with me, so I'd have nothing left for the actual market. And why did the woman at the till ask for an amount that just happened to be all the money I was carrying? Clearly, there were some shenanigans going on there. I'm not saying she was a con woman, but the possibility was there.
But what the dream really illuminated for me is a simple mental truth: I resent paying money for experiences. That includes movie theaters, live concerts, even plays. Why should I pay money for a sensory experience that leads to a corresponding mental shift when I can accomplish an infinite variety of the same for free? Going places costs money. Having a place to stay costs too, but at least you get a place to stay. To a lesser extent, the same holds true for services, which is why I currently resemble Cousin It in terms of hairstyle.
What I really want for my money is a nice, material product. It can be a one-use consumable, but the physicality is important. I'm not sure what that says about me. Is this a weird category of visible capitalism? A search for the tangible? Or am I just really cheap? Something to think about, I guess.
BONUS DREAM: While that dream led to disturbing conclusions, it wasn't that disturbing in itself. Here's one that is.
Back in my high school days, our classroom had one girl who rather enjoyed being verbally negative, if not downright abusive. As one classmate claimed, she was basically this way with everybody, but as a sensitive young fellow, I always thought she was especially so with me. In this dream, I'm back in school and receiving a verbal lashing from said girl. So far, so normal. The difference is that she's really upset--she's getting increasingly frustrated that *I* keep driving her to these extremes with my actions. And everyone around her agrees--in fact, they're getting upset with me for upsetting her, and keep telling me to lay off. This, as you might imagine, gets me upset. I'm about to let loose with a few decades of pent-up resentment when...
She turns into a submarine sandwich.
Now, in that weird way that dreams work, I know, I know, inside that dream, that she did this purely to spite me. (Pause for a moment to let that sink in. She turned into a sandwich out of spite.) So I get even more enraged. And what does an angry man do to a sandwich? Well, I try to eat it. I do try. But I just can't bring myself to do it. So I do the next best thing, and tear the sandwich to pieces. Chunks of tomato and lettuce go flying. There's bread crumbs everywhere. You don't even want to KNOW what happened to the mustard. Once it's done, I look up, and the rest of the class is staring at me, absolutely appalled.
And then I wake up.
Analyze THAT, Sigmund Freud.
Later Days.
Presumably, though, the question was still weighing heavy on my mind when I went to bed a few hours ago, because I think it's behind one of my dreams. I'm attending some sort of Farmer's Market with my parents, and I'm stopped at the entrance: I need to pay the entry fee. I shout ahead to my parents, because I thought they were paying for me. They were not. I ask how much the fee is, and I'm told $9. Upon hearing this, I get so frustrated I wake up.
First, $9 for entering an outdoors farmer's market? That's ridiculous. And the reason I was upset was because $9 was all I had brought with me, so I'd have nothing left for the actual market. And why did the woman at the till ask for an amount that just happened to be all the money I was carrying? Clearly, there were some shenanigans going on there. I'm not saying she was a con woman, but the possibility was there.
But what the dream really illuminated for me is a simple mental truth: I resent paying money for experiences. That includes movie theaters, live concerts, even plays. Why should I pay money for a sensory experience that leads to a corresponding mental shift when I can accomplish an infinite variety of the same for free? Going places costs money. Having a place to stay costs too, but at least you get a place to stay. To a lesser extent, the same holds true for services, which is why I currently resemble Cousin It in terms of hairstyle.
What I really want for my money is a nice, material product. It can be a one-use consumable, but the physicality is important. I'm not sure what that says about me. Is this a weird category of visible capitalism? A search for the tangible? Or am I just really cheap? Something to think about, I guess.
BONUS DREAM: While that dream led to disturbing conclusions, it wasn't that disturbing in itself. Here's one that is.
Back in my high school days, our classroom had one girl who rather enjoyed being verbally negative, if not downright abusive. As one classmate claimed, she was basically this way with everybody, but as a sensitive young fellow, I always thought she was especially so with me. In this dream, I'm back in school and receiving a verbal lashing from said girl. So far, so normal. The difference is that she's really upset--she's getting increasingly frustrated that *I* keep driving her to these extremes with my actions. And everyone around her agrees--in fact, they're getting upset with me for upsetting her, and keep telling me to lay off. This, as you might imagine, gets me upset. I'm about to let loose with a few decades of pent-up resentment when...
She turns into a submarine sandwich.
Now, in that weird way that dreams work, I know, I know, inside that dream, that she did this purely to spite me. (Pause for a moment to let that sink in. She turned into a sandwich out of spite.) So I get even more enraged. And what does an angry man do to a sandwich? Well, I try to eat it. I do try. But I just can't bring myself to do it. So I do the next best thing, and tear the sandwich to pieces. Chunks of tomato and lettuce go flying. There's bread crumbs everywhere. You don't even want to KNOW what happened to the mustard. Once it's done, I look up, and the rest of the class is staring at me, absolutely appalled.
And then I wake up.
Analyze THAT, Sigmund Freud.
Later Days.
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