Monday, October 27, 2008

NOT QUITE LUCID

Last night I had a dream that really stuck in my head. I have many weird dreams, and many that involve many of the elements in this dream, but for some reason this one really had memorable impact. I found myself in a car or truck.... or possibly a station wagon. My Dad was driving, and I was in the passenger seat. I think someone was next to me, but I couldn't see who, because he (I think it was a "he") was sleeping under a blanket. To explain this dream doesn't sound so weird, but it was the feeling that went with it that sticks with me...and the details that I can remember. My Dad was very calm and confident. Driving with no worries at all. I think I was asleep, and woke up (in the dream) to observe that the car was going quite fast, and in reverse. The unsettling part about this was that the others in the car were completely relaxed. My Dad was not even looking behind him, and navigating by looking in the side rear view mirror. He must have been going about 80 mph by the way we were passing others. The other part of this puzzle is the fact that we were speeding through the back alleyways of the neighborhood I grew up in, in Upper Darby. these are very narrow passage ways between the back side of a block of row homes and the small yards behind each home. I realized that we were at this point behind my friend's house, and I knew that that road ended at a cemetery.
I have always had problems being a passenger in a car, and try desperately to distract my mind while being a passenger, even though I am far from able to do just that, and end up gritting my teeth and clutching tightly to whatever there is to grab ahold of. Things were no different in this dream, and I just sat quietly, looking at my Dad, ready to explode inside, watching his unemotional face casually glancing in the rear view mirror. As in most of my dreams, time is not relevant. My Dad appears to be about mid 30's. The car we are in is familiar, and it is not odd that a person is asleep in the front of the car between my Dad and I. It must have been a bench seat, like I had in my 1974 Dodge Dart, but it was a dark interior, not the tan color inside Sid, my beloved first car.
In many dreams I am quite lucid, and know that I am dreaming, and therefore attempt to control the dream. This dream seemed so real. I was quite snowed by the curtain of images created in my mind. I had to stop and think as deeply as I could what happened before this, and why we were where we were, because I realized I had no sense of any of this. It was like that feeling you get when you have been driving for a while on "auto pilot" from a place that you drive quite often, and stop and think...where am I, and how did I get here. In real life, this feeling would be quite temporary, and within seconds I will realize my logistics. In this case I simply had no idea. As I thought more about this, I woke up for real. Back home, on my couch with an infomercial droning on, telling me of a miracle cure for arthritis, my laptop open in front of me listing the collection of emails that have come in since my 2am check just before passing out.

1 comment:

Zach Larmer said...

interesting. i love talking about dreams, what they mean, how they come about, etc. this was very cool.