Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Embracing Ether

Dreams are curious things. Twice last night I awoke with the vivid memory of a dream imprinted in my mind. I wrote down all that I could remember of them before they slipped as smoke into the place of vanished dreams. If I can decipher those notes accurately, I will try to transcribe them here without changing or embellishing the content unnecessarily. I will add a few comments here and there to explain context for those who are not me or have not met me. At last count, that is still most people.
Dream the First:
An ex-girlfriend enters a coffee shop where I sit at the counter with my wife and daughter (although my daughter, barely a year old, would never be able to sit on one of those vinyl mushroom stools - she is too little and very squirmy). She is Jessica, a girlfriend from highschool. We haven't dated for over thirteen years and I last saw her about nine years ago.
Jessica takes a seat and I join her, sitting opposite at a small, square table with two chairs. With my back to a wall, I can see my wife and daughter over Jessica's left shoulder. In dreams, as in all memory, our friends never age so she appears to be in her early twenties.
"I had a dream about you the other night," I tell her.
There is not the least trace of surprise in her eyes. "I know."
I ask her if she wants to meet my wife and daughter but at the mention of my family her features fold in upon themselves in anger. I look down at the little table and see nothing but a ring of coffee staining the artificial wood.
"Why am I sitting here without a cup of coffee?" I wonder to myself. I hate it when people don't buy something.
The dream ends there. Like a Zen koan, it is open to meditative contemplation.
The coffee shop is a complete fiction and has appeared in my dreams before. It is based mostly on "Donut Deluxe", a real coffee shop where I used to spend far too much time. The dream version is fluid and changes depending on the dream. I recall going into the back rooms of the place in dreams, although I never did in real life.
Dream the Second:
I am walking along the sidewalk of a small town with a guy named Peter whom I knew only briefly about ten years ago. He's a pick-up-drivin', NASCAR-watchin', mustache-growin', mullet-sportin' redneck - you know the type.
The weather is fine and the streets are lined with low buildings and trees with full, green leaves. We come to a t-shaped intersection that seems familiar just as a small, articulated delivery truck is about to turn the corner from the through street in to the side street.
"They can never make this corner," I say.
Peter steps into the street and signals the truck, guiding it perfectly around the corner. The truck is blue and white with some sort of a round company logo toward the back. We carry on without any mention of the truck.
We cross the street, pass the first store on the corner and enter the second. Inside, it is a motorcycle shop with a large garage in the back and a small reception area at the front with a counter. The man behind the counter asks Peter, "Come to get your Harley?"
Peter says yes, and the man turns to me, "What about you?"
Somehow at this point I am holding in my hand something that resembles a gas-powered edge-trimmer crossed with a Segway scooter with motorcycle tires. In my dream I understand that it is some kind of motorcycle.
"No," I say, "I drive a Pinto - or, what would be the exact opposite of a Harley?"
Peter says, "Well, they do make a Saab."
And that is all I remembered of the dream. I do know that I woke up wondering if the exact opposite of a Harley-Davidson would be a Saab. Anyway, those are two dreams that I had last night, so analyse as you wish. They probably tell more about my personality than I might consciously be willling to share...