It is always so strange to wake from an especially vivid dream with a full recollection of not only the general plot of the dream, but the accompanying emotions. It is not unusual, in fact, for TGIM to be awakened by one extraordinarily pissed off wife punching him in the arm and hissing, "Jerk!" In my defense, he usually totally deserves it... in my dream. Hey! Don't be judging! I can't be held responsible for my actions during that split second between sleeping and waking, right? It's a fine line, people! A fine line!
Anyhoos, all I'm trying to say is that it is not unusual for me to wake from a dream under the influence of strong, very real emotions: maybe in tears, or sometimes giggling, every once in a while literally trembling with fear. I once woke up silently screaming, which sounds completely strange, but that is what it was and I can't explain it, except to say that my mouth was open and my heart was racing, but all that was coming out of my mouth was a hoarse, whispery "aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh..." (okay, so maybe I can explain it after all). And then upon waking I will ofttimes hold on to those emotions for, oh, say a few to several minutes as I struggle to shake off the confusion of wakefulness (is that a word?) until I finally come to the realization that it was all a dream, and that TGIM did NOT actually leave me for the lady that runs the cash register at Dunkin' Donuts, or that I didn't actually meet Donny Osmond (shut up! totally during my Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat phase! in which he was wicked hot!), or fly my car down into the Grand Canyon to buy hand-made Navajo turquoise necklaces as a Christmas gift for my neighbor's cat. The dream slips ever so slowly away from me, vanishing like, hmm... perhaps like ripples in a pond, which spread so far and so wide that all that is left behind is a stillness, and sometimes a vague remnant of scattered emotions.
But some dreams? Stay with me long after the sleepiness is gone. They do not necessarily have to be nightmares, although some of my craziest nightmares usually fit into this category (but that is a train of thought for another day); they just have to resonate with me. Move me. These dreams may cling for days, weeks, months, perhaps even years. Obviously these dreams will eventually sink to the back of my mind, dormant, but all it takes is something small-- a voice, a smell, a sight, a word, a phone call-- to bring memories of the dream and all its accompanying emotions back to the surface.
Last night I had one of those dream.
That being said, how colossally unfair is it that someone like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, upon waking from just such a vivid dream (sure, albeit drug-induced, but still! making a point here!), could put pen to paper and capture Kubla Khan, one of the most beautiful and hauntingly surreal poems ever written-- and I'm not just saying that because there is a flippin' sweet cult classic movie named after the Xanadu in the poem-- but this morning when I woke from my own vivid, seared-to-my-brain dream, all I get is a lousy memory of driving around town with Kevin Federline and two of his groupies hanging out in the backseat of my car? (I know, right?! K-Fed has groupies? The hell?) I can't write about that! And, oh! They were totally making out to Kevin's horrific new "song" Popozao! And heck yes those are sarcastic quote marks. Good lord. Shizz ain't right, that's all I'm saying.
The most embarrassing part of this whole horrible situation is the fact that K-Fed-- sporting cornrows... CORNROWS!-- was wearing a pair of his signature fugly manpris which I-- in a stroke of apparent genius-- wittily renamed "bops" (you know, for "boy crop pants"-- I know, right? INSANE), a name which I cannot for the life of me get out of my mind. And I wasn't even trippin', y'all! There was no NyQuil involved. Not even a little Tylenol PM! There is absolutely no excuse! Because bops? BOPS?! What am I supposed to do with that? Where is my Kubla Khan?!
Or was this strange dream simply my subconsious mind juxtaposing the normality of life with hints of something sinister? Is there a moral here? Could it be a premonition? Will bops become a nation-wide craze? Huh?
Whatever. All I know is now I'm left with these lingering feelings of anger toward K-Fed for cruising town with the groupies while Britney's probably sitting home with little Sean Preston, all depressed and whatnot, eating herself into a Starbucks frappuccino- and Cheetos-induced coma.
So Coleridge gets Xanadu and I get bops and Popzao?
I KNOW. I may never sleep again.
9 Comments:
-
WILLIAM commented:
"You have to believe we are magic...."
I'm confused by the dreams and Xanadu reference except that maybe you were in an E.L.O sleep instead of R.E.M sleep.- » 2/20/2006 3:56 PM
-
Cat commented:
Thanks, William! I think I fixed that part and hopefully made my point a bit more clear...
If not, I totally meant what you said... E.L.O. sleep... yeah...- » 2/20/2006 4:11 PM
-
Unknown commented:
Cat, I don't care what anyone else says, I think YOU are a GENIUS! :)
- » 2/20/2006 4:15 PM
-
Cat commented:
Bops FOREVAH!
- » 2/20/2006 4:33 PM
-
WILLIAM commented:
Cat I think my comment contained too much bad 80's references because I was referring to the Olivia Newton John movie Xanadu and the music from that was done by ELO. My bad.
- » 2/20/2006 9:05 PM
-
Ern commented:
Xanadu...*sigh*...now where are my roller skates with the hot pink laces?
- » 2/21/2006 1:55 AM
-
commented:
The Christmas after Xanadu came out I got the LP from my brother as a present. I vowed to listen to it twice a day, every day, which I did all Christmas break. After that it was only once a day because I had to go to school of course. But I'm pretty sure I can still sing all the words to that soundtrack.
- » 2/21/2006 12:40 PM
-
commented:
I don't even want to add a comment because this post is almost too perfect to touch. That you can go from driving down into the Grand Canyon to buy Navajo necklaces for your neighbor's cat right into what is one of the most lovely sentences I've read is just...too perfect to touch, like I said.
- » 2/21/2006 1:43 PM
-
dashababy commented:
Cat, I think you are such a good writer. You addressed a subject here that is always on my mind because I've always had these bizzarro dreams that stay with me and make me wonder if I'm headed for the nut house. Most of the time I think I know what they mean. But then there are those times that I just have no clue whatsoever. It's almost like life experiences are digested and regurgitated in our dreams and come back up all jumbled and dissected.
You wrote a few things here in this post that had me oohing and ahhing over your writing ability. Really.- » 2/23/2006 12:07 PM