Dream a Little One
Growing obsessed with the hockey lockout. Reading fan opinions, even. “The union must now be crushed… and I for one will dance on the remains.” Cynicism about people in groups working together. Staging notional conversations in the shower the next time some pig would dare imply the players are at fault. “Sh-yeah,” I will say, “and The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, that’s the players’ fault too, right? Since when do labour negotiations exist to prevent owners from overpaying their workers, smart guy?” Arguments are easy to come by in the age of whizzing opinion. It’s better to argue than to present a fact. My stance now—one shared by the blogosphere I should add—is to collect and assimilate opinions and pass the whole glistening ball off as an inscrutable truth. This is Malcolm Gladwell to a T. “Make up your own mind! (and here’s a bunch of convincing anecdotes to help you out with that)”. We all know research is dull and lacks immediate and palpable pleasure. There’s no hope in slugging through a textbook when the Internet is there to short-circuit the work/reward connection.
Right before bed I’ll think of five more things I should have done tonight. The world closes in for a second and there’s spinning dread, advancing and receding dread, dread about not doing the dishes, taking the garbage down. Shoulda emailed Mum back. Tomorrow will be the day for me, yes sir. Then bliss is restored upon proper lodging of the knee-pillow betwixt my oaky legs. Surely you use one of these things? They have fancy, grooved models (Side note on the uselessness: are these grooves in any way incongruent with the ordinary functioning of a pillow, which is to bend to the shape of whatever’s against it? Have you ever used a pillow that didn’t groove when pressure was applied unto it? Seriously. Attach the word “orthopedic” to something and you’ll sell, sell, sell a million units.) but I use an ordinary little cushion about the size of a bag of potatoes. Your body will feel truly at rest, silent, contented for once. And you’ll dream like the Aurora frigging Borealis.
I used to record my dreams first thing in the morning. My computer would stay on overnight, and I’d rush right to the keys first thing and fire up my little Emacs Lisp script and hammer out as much as I could remember, barely forming sentences, the thoughts piling up and tripping over each other. Seeing people from my past without having any good reason other than my subconsious saying I haven’t thought about Miss R. Bartlett from grade 8 in a while, let’s drum up a fleeting glimpse and try vainly to eroticize it for a second, shall we? Dream memories don’t work like regular memories; they leave your conscious mind and you can kiss those suckers goodbye, so get them down on paper ASAP. Here is an excerpt from early 2003:
There is some kind of cardboard tube throwing contest. I am running it, and people from work are there. Groups of 8 or so people line up and throw a paper tube. whoever throws it the furthest gets to advance to the next round. There are a couple of twins there, Jason and Jamie. They look like Rexdale Matt who works at Mr. Sub.
Marty and I out in the street (constance st), getting ready to drive to work. There is a snotnosed British kid there who is complaining. Somehow we have to make sure he’s okay, so marty tracks him down. Marty is drunk or something. Then we drive to work [ed: Marty and I weren't, and have never been, coworkers], but marty doesn’t remember how to get there, so we drive his car down a beautiful grassy trail and end up near work. There is a red street sign denoting “Spider Street”.
NOTE: this dream was induced by waking up and going back to sleep for ninety minutes. the REM period happened towards the end of this second sleep session.
On and on like this it goes, a whole year’s worth. It is a worthwhile exercise so long as you’re willing to go back over and scrape for symbolism and “dream signposts”. It’s easy to creep yourself out but then the secret is to not let anyone else read the dirty ones.
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