Dreams Ended All Dreams

The idea that our dreams are somehow prophetic, or at the very least suggestive of our mental peculiarities has fascinated our collective unconscious, since, let’s say, cro-magnon-man, who upon waking one morning realized that “all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration — that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death; life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves…”*

He went on to beat his wife senseless with a club before leaving town for Los Angeles where he hoped to star in parts one, two, three, and seven of the soon-to-be-infamous Chain of Gorgon series.

Last night I dreamt that I was running from a parade of machete-wielding sociopaths whose plan for world domination relied upon the acquisition of a pine box which they would submerge into the depths of the ocean carrying their Commander.

The other part of the story involved a hybrid of Austin Scarlett (look it up, I’m too ashamed to provide the hyperlink) and Matt Smith (No, I have NOT begun season two yet, please don’t spoil anything for me), who, as a man of action was required to swim across a nondescript room whereupon he was sucked into the bathroom by a magnetic or vacuum force of some kind in order to close a portal to another dimension. He returned a moment later in frustration, opened the door to the adjacent room, and flushed the toilet. Here, I was ashamed, knowing the tiny turd flowing down the stream was mine (Why did I not flush!) and that somehow this had irrevocably ruined his master plan.

The night before Donald Trump offered me a mortgage at the competitive rate of 8%.

I guess what I am trying to say is this: we have so little time here, and most of it is spent horizontal. And that while it would be great to make some sense out of the third of our lives we spend in symbolic nonsense, most of us have a hard time justifying the research. I generally do my investigation while in “down dog,” which yogis would likely frown upon (if I legitimately try and clear my mind, by the way, all I can do is think about death and eternity, so fuck off).

I look at the figures in my dream. Familiar faces, themes. At the end I am always left with a feeling. Fear, doubt, longing, anticipation, nostalgia. Sometimes a smell. Sometimes the backwards half-life of an incomplete song. It’s not enough to analyze, but it does allow me to paint a picture.

And if death is nothing but a dream, I want to be prepared to avoid over-interpretation.

*Quote by Bill Hicks.


8 thoughts on “Dreams Ended All Dreams

  1. Another great post. I hate having bad dreams. The remnants always stay with me throughout the day. Dreams are like one's whole day and thoughts and encounters being frapped in a blender and poured into a shotglass of sleep. Disturbing and bittersweet.

  2. I find dreams to be very transitional. For instance, when I dreamed I had two parallel mothers and one was the devil, the better version of course – and I had to escape up a tree and wait in line for 6,387 years to get into heaven. Or the time my dead dog visited me with a message of peace. I'm not even religious. The best kinds of dreams are when you awake in tears of gratitude…

  3. famous: I have the exact same reaction! It's like a pressure that follows you around all day. "Shotglass of sleep." Good name for a band 😉

  4. valley: do you really recall the number "6,387"? That in itself is terrifying. If I were a numerologist, I would tell you to look up the number 6… (6+3=9, 9+8=17, 1+7=8, 8+7=15, 1+5=6)Tears of gratitude. Not sure I've had those from a dream, but it would be interesting…what exactly do you mean by transitional?

  5. Okay, so there's no disguising myself…here goesAll matter IS merely energy. Depok Chopra says so. That makes it true. I never have deep thoughts in "down dog", I might be able to teach you some techniques for clearing your mind. A little Reiki maybe? My dream memory is fleeting…like a fine mist…wisps of images. I love reading your posts. You always keep me thinking. And I thought your hero was McGiver.

  6. First of all, Mom, I can't believe you misspelled MacGyver. And yeah, he was my hero, like twenty years ago (scoffs, shakes head, rewires television set with seaweed and elephant dung).Perhaps I should dig out the old VHS Chopra tapes from your basement. Have they been converted to DVD yet? I will consider the Reiki. But YOU will have to consider that my mind is not easily cleared. It is a dungeon filled with alphabet blocks scrawled with arcane symbols written in blood. muahahahhahahahahahah.No, seriously. If you can fix my brain I will give you back that Lego starship I destroyed of yours 25 years ago.

  7. I just have to say, I wanted to laugh out loud about the down dog bit. Thinking about you doing down dog and thinking about yogis frowning is hilarious. Trust that I am not frowning, Mr. Zar. When you are doing downward facing dog, I am somewhere giving a high five to whomever I find in close proximity.I rarely remember my dreams with any clarity. Alexia almost always does, and she usually delivers a journalistic report upon waking up. I can say, though, that in prior periods of intensely heavy moods, my dreams have become much more vivid to my waking consciousness, and they're usually very inspiring/helpful when my waking consciousness feels defeated or depressed. I've always found that interesting.

  8. I just wrote the most amazing response. Then I went to submit and it bombed out. Fuck. I just don't think I have it in me to be that philosiphically verbose twice. But here goes:To the second part (downdog later) I say: It is fascinating to me that you would see dreams occasionally as an inspiration to your daily life. Typically I wake up either relieved to be away from a particularly harrowing situation, or upset to be woken up at all. If anything, a vivid dream generally haunts me the rest of the day, paralyzing my thoughts and actions. But hearing this from you makes much sense. I have always viewed your palette as dreamy — the fuzzy figures, the solid desriptive lines that never seem to converge completely on the subject — leaving me with the same desire for understanding as the moment of awakening. I have often hoped my music would one day have a similar quality.As to the other thing. Do you mean to say that yogis (such as yourself) would be pleased to see that I am performing yoga at all, let alone my half-baked version? That while I maneuever clumsily from one step to the next, thinking about breakfast, task-lists, budgets, death, and coffee that secretly somewhere a yogi is smiling to himself? It's true, sometimes, arms raised in the air, a tickle on my shoulder brings a cloudy voice to focus: "Good job, moron. Maybe one day you'll get beyond five sun salutations and stop rushing through the damn thing like a shot of tequila…"

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