It began in St. Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd, then Leningrad. I know it was St. Petersburg and not the other two because there was a computer with a flat screen monitor in the room. Someone was speaking Russian. Sometimes, I have dreams where other languages are spoken even if I don't speak those languages.
(Fun fact: I had a dream once entirely in German. Never watch a Fassbinder film before going to bed.)
There was a boy facing a computer screen, shouting into a cell phone. He had short dark hair. I was sleeping on a floor even though there was a bed next to me. The blankets were dark. The room itself was austere. Barely decorated cinder block roads, not unlike my college dorm room. Outside, the sky was grey and snow was falling. When the boy left to go to the bathroom I ran from that room, down the hall and into the stairwell where there was frost on everything: the frozen metal handrails, the walls, the stairs themselves, as if someone had left a window open and let the snow in overnight.
It was Russia, after all.
I descended the flight of stairs and opened the fire door at the bottom and exited, not into St. Petersburg, but onto Attu Island during Wold War II.
(For those of you that don't know, Attu and Kiska Islands in Alaska were occupied by the Japanese from 1942-1943. Attu Island is the last island in the Aleutian Island chain.)
For some reason, there was a bar there. I walked into it. It was warm and well lighted. The atmosphere was jovial. There were various people there from various points in history. Most notably, Bob Crane, from, 'Hogans Heroes' fame was there. He and I began to talk. He had a grave expression on his face. Perhaps he knew how he would die, the mystery surrounding it. I could see the crows feet wrinkles around his formerly handsome face. He was wearing the jacket he always wore in the show, but it was tattered.
(Back in 2008 when I had this dream I was in the habit of watching many 'Hogans Heroes' re-runs. I believe anyone under 30 is not going to know what 'Hogans Heroes' was. It was a damn fine show.)
When I exited the bar I was no longer on Attu, but back in St. Petersburg in the present day. I was running from something, running toward to the River Neva.
Now, I have dreams that would make Freud and Jung blush and that, ladies and gents, is probably one of the craziest dreams I've ever had that I can actually put down into words. Most of the time I can remember images of my dreams, but can not even begin to describe them. Of course, through the years pieces of that dream have been lost in my memory, but the majority of it remains in tact.
Of course, I did have a dream the other night where I was running around with Kevin Barnes from of Montreal, but the most exciting part of that dream was getting to touch his shirtless, perfect form.
Took this picture shortly after getting up from a nap. I think it's fitting for the subject of the blog, no?
