danny_g

Let us speak of dreams.

Some people think that the least interesting thing you can do is discuss your dreams. Well, at least one person. Who, admittedly, is a complete wanker. But others disagree. Frankly, I've had a few dreams I'm pretty sure were fascinating. I've gotten a few dreams out of But here's the rub: evn my most coherent dreams suffer from a certain... randomness. No matter how linear the events of the dream may be, and every now and then they just about manage it, there will always be abstract shifts that make relating the dream a difficulty.

And sometimes that's for the best, as there are dreams that simply do not bear repeating. Once you've admitted that a certain person was in your dream there's no recovering, no matter how innocent you feel the context may have been.

So I find that what makes a dream memorable, what caused me to base scripts on two of them, was the emotional reaction to the dream. Some aspect of what we shall loosely call the plot sparked an emotional reaction so vivid that I felt I had to try and recreate it. So I try to piece together what events sparked this response, and attempt to recreate them in a more lucid fashion. 'Cause no matter how linear the events of the dream that inspired Salvage seemed at the time, people did shift into Leo DiCaprio or Reese Witherspoon largely at random.

Sometimes the emotional resonance is a curse. If something overly positive happens in the dream, something that could not or would not happen in real life, I get to spend the day dealing with having this wonderful event ripped away from me. One time, in junior high, I dreamt that I finally had the video game I'd been wanting for months, if not years. Bubble Bobble, if you care. Suddenly it struck me that I was in one of those dreams, and that soon Bubble Bobble will be lost to me. Just then, a voice booms out, like some supervillain caught in the act, declaring "And so it is! So let's take it now!" and a whirlwind descended to suck it all away.

These days the positive events are a little more profound. And losing them hurts even more. But frankly, waking up at seven hurts plenty as it is.

Once upon a time I had a dream go to test pattern. No word of a lie. The dream just shifted to a still image of my bedroom door, slightly open, and the message "Your dream will resume in a moment. Please stand by." That was a weird one.

I could discuss PAX. But today I will simply state that after four days on the road with The Boys I grow weary of the company of men. Good thing I've got a bachelor party this weekend.

"Oh boy, sleep! That's where I'm a Viking!"
-Ralph Wiggum