Obligatory Dream Thread

[jay-ell]

Last night I dreamed that I had sex with Steve Martin.  

Later, I dreamed that I was a teenager in Salem about ten years after the witch trials, and my mother -- a prostitute -- had been hanged and then burned when I was a small child.  I carried her cremains with me in an envelope.  I had become pregnant by a black man in a neighboring town, and when the child was born and the doctor saw that she was black, he declared her stillborn and killed her.  Before long, I had another envelope of ashes to carry with me.  This part was extremely dark and disturbing, but then Pedro showed up and I told him all about it and he comforted me.  

After that, just before I woke up, I dreamed that I was a spy on a mission to infiltrate a KGB base, and just as I was about to execute the complex series of acrobatic feats required to gain entry, my point of view switched to third person.  

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According to Dreammoods.com, the first part of the dream signifies that I need to incorporate some aspects of my dream sex partner into my own character.  The fact that I dreamed of having sex with an actor indicates that I am on a quest for pleasure, and may suggest that I desire to incorporate some of his personality traits.  Probably, I'm not funny enough.  

The second part is far more complex.  While a newborn infant often indicates pleasant surprises, the immediate and violent death of that infant at the hands of a doctor would seem to indicate that illness and strife will abort such pleasantness and signifies my need for spiritual healing.  Furthermore, while giving birth symbolizes taking on a new project, a stillborn child indicates the fear that the project will fall apart before it can be completed.  The loss of my dream-mother (who was not, in fact, my real-life mother) indicates an absence of shelter, comfort, and guidance in my life; the fact that she was a witch either strengthens this point by representing goodness, power, and enchantment or counteracts it by representing dangerous and destructive feminine forces.  Since my dream-mother was also a prostitute, the latter seems more likely.  Witnessing the murder of my infant indicates a deep-seated anger towards somebody for causing the destruction of my creative energies. Furthermore, since a physician comitted the murder, it seems likely that I blame discouraging illness and familial strife for that destruction.  

The last part, I chalk up to too much Freedom Force.  

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I pretty much think all this dream interpretation stuff is hooey.  That said, though, I find it interesting to poke around when I have particularly vivid and unusal dreams to see what it all "means."  My dreams tend to be highly complex and involve dream-memories that fall outside the borders of the dreams themselves (for instance, I didn't dream that my mother was being hanged, but the memory of her death was intact at the start of the dream.)  I've also had disturbing dreams and nightmares from the time I was a small child, which I just assume is part of being the kind of person Pedro tactfully describes as "wound rather tightly."  Most of my nightmares are recurrent dreams, so when I come across a new one (like the above) it's interesting to me.  

Pedro, on the other hand, rarely remembers his dreams, and when he does, they're relatively common and mundane.  I've found this to be the case with most people I've talked to.  My mom has wild and bizzare dreams like mine, but very few nightmares.  I understand that there's nothing more boring than someone trying to explain what s/he dreamed last night, but I thought that no message board is really complete without some kind of dream thread.  So, here it is.  Feel free to comment on my dream and proposed interpretation, or share your own dream and let us pick it apar...I mean, tactfully and kindly offer our well-informed opinions.  

Have at it, kids.

[slink]

I am always actually quite interested in people's dreams. I guess maybe it stems from trying to see how fucked up other people's psyches are and thus to feel better about my own.
It's certainly quite a disturbing dream that. And I'm guessing you'd class it as a nightmare but you weren't scared by it? That is what I have as nightmares now. I remember vividly a few from my childhood, ones where I woke up sharply with pain that mirrored that of the dream, but ever since I just fail to get scared by dreams.
I tend to be left depressed by dreams more than anything.

Anyway, I'd write more but I have to run and eat!

[AlohaDawg]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[jay-ell]

I was definitely terrified and distraught in the middle part of the dream.  I spent a good portion of it crying, and (I forgot to mention) I feared for my life -- I thought the townspeople might stone me for having conceived a child out of wedlock.  I couldn't seem to wake up, though, and by the time I did, I had moved on to the action-movie part of my dream and the nightmare seemed more...distant.  

The sex with Steve Martin is really the bizzare part, to me.  Part of it involved a nineteen year old stripper with fake boobs -- Steve's girlfriend -- and Pedro, but getting rutty with a comedian who's old enough to be my father was distracting enough that I don't remember much about simultaneously seeing my husband make out with a topless strumpet.  I think the strangest thing was, Steve was cracking jokes through the whole thing, which I found attractive and not at all psychotic.

[jay-ell]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

True that.  But sometimes it's more fun when it's not... :wink:

[V-Adore]

I haven't had any particularly spastic dreams lately, although I had some really notably bizarre ones throughout middle school which I might throw out if the thread gets boring.

I can't remember most of my dream last night, except that at one point the people I was with and I were attempting to order fast-food tacos and I spazzed for most of the order. The problem was, as I recall, that I knew precisely what I wanted, but it was from an entirely different fast-food taco place and I couldn't find a good equivalent. As I recall, the place we were ordering from was fake, but the taco I pictured myself wanting (and its establishment of origin) were entirely real.

So! Frustrated and unfulfilled desires on a cosmic scale, or just "V wants a taco and can't get it?"

[jay-ell]

So! Frustrated and unfulfilled desires on a cosmic scale, or just "V wants a taco and can't get it?"

Hmmm.  That's a tough one.  Maybe the message is that you need to be more flexible in your taco-eating goals.  

I couldn't find the significance of tacos in the dream database, unfortunately.

[AlohaDawg]

For about the past 10 years, I have been fully conscious of the fact that I was dreaming during the dreams that I remember. Therefore, I can not be filled with dread or fear or sadness because I either remember that I am dreaming or I just say "wake up" and I do.

It sounds weird written down.

[wombat]

I used to have a recurring type of dream that I was at a bakery with a huge array of wonderful things and it was really hard to choose.  I always woke up before I got to eat anything.  I don't know why I don't have it anymore.  Perhaps I no longer think life is full of possibilities?  Or maybe I just used to go to bed hungry too often?

My recurring type of anxiety dream is that I'm trying to get ready for work in the morning in a strange bathroom that makes it really hard to take a shower - like, the shower head points right at the bed, say.  

My recurring type of fear dream is about scary bizarre large strange almost alien aircraft flying overhead, often doing strange maneuvers like loops that they are clearly too big for.  This may not seem terribly imaginative since I've always been afraid of aircraft when awake, but they are usually very imaginative aircraft.

I do occassionally have dreams like JL's where there's clearly all this elaborate history to whatever is going on at the moment, and you have memories inside the dream of the background to it.  They're exhausting, and they seem like a waste of brainpower that could be used for, like, writing novels or something, because they are that complicated.  I'm also a rather tightly wound person, but we'd need a lot more data to decide whether this was relevant.

[CortJstr]

I have the problem where I try to read something (usually a caller ID entry or such) and can't make it out. Then I realize I'm dreaming. And rather than continue with a nice lucid dream like any self respecting straight man would I pop myself awake. Then curse myself for several minutes for ruining it before going back to sleep.

[jay-ell]

I do occassionally have dreams like JL's where there's clearly all this elaborate history to whatever is going on at the moment, and you have memories inside the dream of the background to it.  They're exhausting, and they seem like a waste of brainpower that could be used for, like, writing novels or something, because they are that complicated.  I'm also a rather tightly wound person, but we'd need a lot more data to decide whether this was relevant.

I've actually started a screenplay based on one of my more coherent dreams, and it's not half bad.  I think my plausibility-meter keeps most of my good creative ideas out of my consciousness during the day, so I've got to grab them at night.  

My classic anxiety dream -- which has been shared by several other "theatre people" in my aquaintence -- is that I show up for what I think is the first day of rehersal, and it's actually opening night of a performance.  A friend of mine has the variation where he's rehearsed one play and on opening night he discovers that they're performing something completely different.  And since I've re-entered Academia, I have dreamed that I show up for the first day of class, and then find out I'm supposed to be teaching it.

[pmcd9]

So! Frustrated and unfulfilled desires on a cosmic scale, or just "V wants a taco and can't get it?"

I know there are times when i've wanted a taco and couldn't get it.

~Paul

[CortJstr]

Dammit, now I want a taco. You bastards!

[jay-ell]

So! Frustrated and unfulfilled desires on a cosmic scale, or just "V wants a taco and can't get it?"

I know there are times when i've wanted a taco and couldn't get it.

~Paul

Dammit, now I want a taco. You bastards!

Are we talking literal tacos, here?  Or is this some kind of slang I haven't heard about yet?

[Asherdan]

I'm a pretty calm dude, but my job runs really hot when a new project is on.  I can always tell it's getting to me in th ol' unconscience part of my pea-brain when I start having a series of a particular type of dreams.

These dreams all have a similar cast, drawn from the crowd I ran with in the final year before I graduated from college, 2 female/3 male.  The locations are always different, sometimes imaginary, sometimes a place I've been that is always after the time-frame I knew these folks in.  There's always a backstory that I just know, as if a memory, that is not part of the dream sequence itself.  We're always trying to solve a difficult issue that is dire, usually looking for clues to find something.  The tone is generally frantic, as we work as groups, splinter, look for others and try to solve our task.  If there are any characters that are 'new' they are invariable smokin' hot women and up to no good at all.  The dreams are  generally long, convoluted and they never reach a resolution.

Oh yeah, and all five of the prime players died together on a car trip to go skiing.

And now I want a literal taco.