Dreams: By Tag: Music

Friday, May 08, 2009: Haiku

Across blue silence,
the Sun trills a song of clouds;
fingertips, same song.

Thursday, July 10, 2008: Mephistopheles

He was rummaging through two boxes of books, when a strange man appeared. He was tall. His skin had a golden sheen, his eyes sparkled, his head was bare and bony. He wore fine clothing spun from gold of different colors. With a gesture, he set a box of books on fire, and said in a smooth, deep voice, “You will not find what you are looking for in those.”

“Yes, I know,” he said.

“If you want to learn real magic,” he explained as he handed him a scroll, “Have your wife sing this Persian song with three others in this temple.”

“It must be a spell,” he thought.

Thursday, January 03, 2008: Guitar jam

A coworker gave me a guitar. He had his own guitar. We jammed on a song. We were outside, in the woods. Blue sky and sun shone through the canopy.

I remember fingering particular chords and arpeggios, but I do not remember the song.

I had a similar dream not long ago.

Saturday, December 22, 2007: Lucid exercise, whirling dervishes, and jamming

I tried a lucid dream inducing technique last night, one that I had not tried for years. Basically, before going to sleep, you remind yourself that when you see your hands in a dream, that your hands will remind you that you are in a dream. So I tried it and it worked.

[As I observed myself drift off to sleep,] I found myself in a hotel corridor. I looked at my hands to remind myself that I was dreaming, and it worked. As a demonstration, I intentionally kissed each woman I met as I walked down the hall. I reached the elevator, but the doors had closed. A man was standing outside the elevator. I said to him, Want to see a neat trick? I pressed the elevator button. The doors opened, and the elevator car was present, even though it had apparently departed. I got into the elevator. A woman was standing in the elevator with me. I pressed the down button. Then I kissed her.

At this point, I relenquished lucid control over the dream, and let it flow by itself.

I entered a very large room. A man with a shaven head and an upturned moustache was observing. He was observing dancers, dancing a dance that appeared to be whirling combined with tai chi. He saw me, and we nodded at each other.

I woke up, then went back to sleep.

A dark-skinned man with dreadlocks and a guitar invited me to jam with him in a parking lot. I picked up a guitar. It took me a few tried, but eventually, I learned the song he was playing.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007: Chain Vendor, TV Overboard

While Mambo No. 5 boomed through the dark club, I put money into a vending machine that dispensed jewelry. I acquired three gold chains, but there were supposed to be four. One of the chains had a small gold scythe attached to it.

I have been reading Dhalgren by Samuel R Delany. Many of the characters in the book wear chains.

In another dream, my wife and I were being driven on a highway by an old friend of mine (Matt or Gaf). We were passed by a dangerously speeding SUV, filled with shouting uniformed high-school football players, holding a large television in the back. As we drove on, we encountered the same SUV again, this time pulled over to the side of the highway. Apparently, the TV fell off the back of the SUV and smashed in the road.

My wife and I decided to get rid of our TV.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007: Old Records, Catholic Boarding School

I was sitting on a bus with two friends, but I do not recall who they were. We each had a stack of old punk and metal records on our laps. As we flipped through the records, we reminisced aloud, mimicking the riffs and beats and lyrics we remembered.

In another dream, I was a young boy, attending a Catholic boarding school. A nun escorted me up a long winding stair to the dorms. My friend Matt also lived at the school. In his dorm, he showed me a secret drawer, hidden by two bibles, where he kept a hidden stash of girly magazines and other contraband from the nuns.

Sunday, June 17, 2007: Seven Dreams

In the first dream, I lived in a mansion, with cream-colored walls. The air felt cool. In an upper room, my friends gathered to play Dungeons & Dragons.

In the second dream, I entered a dark vault. Several scientist-cultists gathered around a black slab; they seemed perplexed. I looked up. Floating overhead was a wrinkled, skinny old man, naked except for a tangled cream-colored bed-sheet. After-images of himself floated beyond him. He radiated malevolence.

In the third dream, I was lying in bed. My wife was sleeping next to me. A lamp on a side table lit the bedroom; it had cream-colored walls and matching bed linen. A goldfish floated through a doorway. It glided through the air towards me. I brushed it with my fingertips, and it swam away. [In real life, I tried speaking in my sleep to my wife, repeating, “Look, a fish!” My dog must have heard me; he woke me, his paws propped up on the edge of the bed and his nose in my face.]

In the fourth dream, my wife and I were walking along a wooded road in Vermont. We were walking to a bed-and-breakfast. “It’s just around the corner,” I said.

In the fifth dream, my wife and I were sitting on a couch, with a sheet wrapped around us, watching porn on television.

In the sixth dream, I was reading a letter from Trent Reznor to his girlfriend. It was taped to a refrigerator.

In the seventh dream, I was sitting in a sound studio with Alice Cooper, The Rolling Stones, and Metallica. They were jamming on Satisfaction.

Sunday, March 11, 2007: A Gift from a Coworker

A friend from work, Charlene, gave my wife and I tickets to U2 for our birthdays.

Sunday, December 10, 2006: Too Close Shave, Strange Toilet, Dog Bite, Ice Cream

My wife gave me a facial hair trimmer for Christmas. I performed a test shave in the bathroom mirror. The trimmer shaved too close; it shaved off the skin on my chin in two places.

In another dream, I was hanging out with my old friend William, at his radio show, with a couple of well-known but much older rappers. We were discussing Rap Theory, the rise and decline of the music genre.

I had a dream that I was at a party. People were dancing, talking, drinking. I fondled two different women; they didn't seem to mind. During the dream, I found that I was describing the dream to somebody in a second separate dream. In the second separate dream, I was in a group therapy session, led by a husky, middle-aged black man.

In another dream, I was in my basement, examining the toilet in the bathroom. I noticed that there was a blue plastic skirt around the toilet base. I removed the skirt and discovered that there was nothing under it but a deep hole, to a sub-basement, with a blue pool of water. “Somebody is going to fall into that,” I thought to myself.

I had a dream that I was in the ice cream section of a supermarket. The ice cream was gourmet quality, in various delightful flavors and shapes. I selected an orange cream flavored gelato.

In the last dream I can recall, our little silky terrier was having a panic attack. He was lashing out, growling and biting at everything. I got his attention, to protect my wife, and to calm him down. He leaped up and latched onto my thumb with his back teeth. It doesn’t hurt; he doesn't even break the skin. His jaw jutted at an unusual angle. I held him in the air for a while. He seemed to ponder the situation and calmed down, releasing my thumb.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006: Vermont at Last

My wife and I wandered Church Street in Burlington, Vermont. We shopped, dined, drank coffee, and listened to street musicians, again and again. We had a wonderful time.

In a separate, brief dream, I tried to climb down from a twenty-foot tall stone pillar to the ground.

In real life, my wife and I drove to Burlington this weekend. We stayed at the Willard Street Inn. Each day, we walked to Church Street. While we were awake, we wandered Burlington; while we slept, we wandered Burlinton.

On a side note, I picked up Little Nemo 1905-1914, a collection of the surreal sunday comic by Winsor McCay.

Monday, October 30, 2006: Mail Bomb, Playing Bass Guitar

While working in a warehouse, I noticed an unusual package. I asked my co-workers about it, but they didn’t recognize it. Carefully, I unsealed and opened the cardboard box. Inside was a sealed gray plastic bag. Written on the bag was the word “DIE!” And the bag was ticking! I immediately threw the bag into a green metal trash dumpster, and ducked. There was a small explosion, and the sound of metal against metal. We looked in the dumpster and saw that the bomb had been full of metal ball bearings and other shrapnel.

In another dream, my wife and I were browsing around a music store. I saw a light blue six-string bass guitar. I picked it up and played four bar blues on it. The store manager came over and started chatting with me about the bass. He also mentioned that the store offered bass lessons.

Saturday, October 21, 2006: Duet, Toughs, Needles, a Train, and a Moose

I was walking in the middle of the street in an urban area in bright daylight. I passed a college campus. A young woman joined me on my walk. She started singing, and I joined her singing.

As we continued walking and singing, night fell. We stopped singing. We turned down a street. We passed a news stand, and then the street came to a dead end. I noticed that the young woman was no longer with me. I could not find her. At the end of the street were a gang of children, six or seven of them, no older than twelve. One of them looked like Malcolm David Kelley. I asked them if they had seen the young woman who was with me. They laughed, and surrounded me. They grabbed me by my arms and legs, but I shook them off.

In a separate dream, I was walking on a road again, at night. I fell on an open box of acupuncture needles. I lifted myself up, and found several dozen needles sticking out of my left elbow and right knee. As I pulled them out, one by one, some nearby people laughed. I said it wasn't funny.

I also dreamed I was in a brightly lit mall of gleaming metal, glass, and white plastic. I stood at the top of an escalator. I was writing something down, and talking with a man who was standing nearby. I dropped the pen on the escalator, but quickly fetched it. The man warned me of an oncoming train, and just then, along a narrow pair of shiny metal rails, a mini-train passed us, carrying a single passenger per car.

In my last dream, I was standing on a snowy hillside. I saw Royal Canadian Mounted Police standing around in the snow, looking at something. I approached where they were standing, to see what they were looking at. A moose was lying in the snow. It appeared to be dead. I asked if it was dead, but I saw it lift its head slightly, then drop its head back into the snow. The mounted police sang a sad low song for the moose. They said that it was a traditional song they sung for fallen mounties, and that all moose are considered honorary mounties. All but one of the mounties rode off to get help. I asked the officer who was still there if the moose was injured; I could not see if the moose was hurt or sick.

Saturday, October 07, 2006: Hospital Escape, Musical, Snail and Moth

A friend of mine, William, was having an artistic crisis. We were hanging out at his apartment. I was talking to him about the dream blog I was putting together. He interrupted me, but I did not understand what he said, as if there were a loud mental noise in the room. He seemed extremely agitaged. I asked him to repeat what he said, but I couldn’t understand him again. He gestured towards what I thought was a dresser with a cardboard box under it, but I still could not understand him.

Suddenly we were surrounded by doctors and nurses. They explained that there was a procedure that could be done to alleviate his condition. We were escorted into an operating room. As a nurse prepped a needle, I realized that they were going to operate on me! I knocked the needle out of the nurse’s hand and ran. The hospital staff chased me, but I eluded them, and escaped through an exit. But I was still on hospital property, surrounded by a high fence. I looked around. I could hear a police officer’s stream of conciousness as he stalked me, but I crawled on the ground near some bushes, climbed the fence, and was out.

Now I found myself falling. But I had transformed into a spiky pink haired anime character, so falling wasn’t a big deal. I landed on the roof of a semi, and jumped down to ground level.

Artistic crisis averted, I saw a club with a scrolling LED sign. A Misfits cover band was performing there soon, but they needed a lead singer. I found myself singing Die, Die, my Darling, and singing it rather well.

As I walked down the street singing, I came across some teenagers hanging out in front of my elementary school. I stopped singing, and they began to sing their own songs, about smoking and drinking and doing drugs.

As they sang, I noticed a tiny moth riding on the back of a tiny snail.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004: Playhouse

I was in a red brick church-like playhouse. It reminded me of St. Stephen's Church on Grafton Street. In front of me, was Zoe Wanamaker. She had white hair, and was singing a song called “I Smell?” After the song was over, an old woman wearing a dark red leather cloak came down from the stage and told me to follow her. I followed her downstairs, to a dark, open space. The stairs spiraled down to a small brick house in the midst of the vast darkness. I descended.

The association of the playhouse with St. Stephen's Church goes beyond mere appearance. There is a sense of space, that in my mind, this place is the same place as the church, without actually being the church.

I had watched My Family on BBC America that evening; Zoe Wanamaker plays the mother in that series.

Tuesday, August 03, 2004: Apartments

I was standing across the street from a pair of three-story apartments, sitting on an open plain. The apartments had flat roofs and were constructed, if you had a bird’s-eye view, to resemble the letter W. The house on the left was yellow; the house on the right was white. By way of color, position, and height, the apartment on the right resembled my childhood home on Dartmouth Street, and the apartment on the left resembled... the apartment to the left of my childhood home. Because the apartments were on an open plain, I felt nervous about approaching tornados, though there wasn't a cloud in sight.

A woman was selling the yellow house. It seems I had already bought the white house. “If I had the money,” I thought, “I would buy both houses.”

As I examined the house, I discovered that the basement ceiling was very low, and I was able to move the floorboards overhead. The upper interior of the house had a wide open space with heavy, movable wrought-iron stairs, platforms, and even stranger structures, one of which I think was a folding cube.

My father, brother, uncles, and my father’s (now deceased) dog were in the house. As Bandit, my father’s dead dog approached me, I felt apprehensive, because I knew that, in real life, the dog was dead.

In another dream I had, I was in a hotel bed. I had a cold. My nose was very runny. I blew my nose frequently and put the tissues on the floor next to the bed. Steve (Jack Davenport) and Susan (Sarah Alexander) from the BBC TV show Coupling were in the bed next to me, arguing.

I had a dream that I was living in a first-floor studio of an apartment complex. A young black man outside my window was complaining about how loud my music was.

I had a dream that I was reading RPG review online, something that I was doing frequently last night.

Finally, in the last dream I remember, I was talking to a small latino boy and his family. He had a black pet that could talk, though I can’t remember if it was a cat or a dog.