Wednesday, September 22, 2010

DreamScape IV: Dancer, Dog, Wife, Cat

I have to admit, this dream (from the wee hours of May 31, 2010) is probably my favorite dream of recent memory. Analyze that.

Actual dream portions in italics.

***

Where am I? It's not Reno, because I can see the Strip. But it's not Las Vegas, either, because my friends from Reno are here. David, Linnea, and someone else I guess I don't actually know. Then again, maybe it is Las Vegas and they're just visiting. Regardless, we're all eating in a restaurant in a casino called The Istanbul. Just where The Istanbul is, I couldn't tell you, but the food is good and we're imbibing a little too much. Fuck it. I haven't seen Dave or Linnea in four years and the mood is fitting. Can't recall what we talked about, but I'm sure it had to do with high school.

By the time our lunch is over, I'm wasted. Irresponsible, I know, since I'm at The Instanbul to work on a dancing competition show for television. It's all good, though, because somehow I'm sober by the time I get to my room upstairs (gotta love dreamworlds). There are three dancers practicing there, and I guess I should be confused as to why there would be dancers rehearsing in my room, but I'm not. One of the dancers is "Gia," a contestant from an earlier season. As soon as I enter, the other two dancers leave, and I'm surprised as anybody when Gia kisses me. 

"It's about time. Where have you been?" she asks.

We're supposedly dating, and while I can neither confirm nor deny this, I don't much care. She's hot, it's my dream, and I can be as superficial as I want to be. Naturally, such a relationship is against the policy of the show. It's a wonder why we're not keeping it a better secret.

"We have to get to set." I'm not sure, but I think she just gave me an order.

We're following a big line of people to the theater. The Istanbul's theater appears to be a separate building and, on our way there, we run into a woman who remembers me from somewhere. I don't recognize her, but then we start listing television shows and films we've worked on.

"Maybe it was this same show? I worked here a couple of years ago," I tell the woman. And that I did, except for the fact that I didn't work the Vegas portion. Gia knows I didn't, and the lie - or half-truth - kinda pisses her off. The woman, though, accepted my answer and turns away.

"Or the singing show," I call after the woman, who doesn't seem to care anymore.

Gia glares at me. I didn't meant to lie, it was a simple mistake. But then it dawns on me... I think in some imaginary history I told Gia I was somewhere else. She's seething. "The next time, you'd better tell me something when you have to tell me something."

I have no idea what that means. All I do know is that I'm packing heat. Where the gun came from is a mystery, but it's in an SAS-style holster and the fact that nobody's yet noticed it is a little odd. I get a call to report to a funeral and Gia, feeling a tad sorry for me that I can't work the show, kisses and forgives me for my earlier faux pas.

The funeral is for some woman... a disgustingly obese black woman. I get the feeling that I should know who she is - a celebrity of some sort, perhaps - but I can't place her. It seems more than disrespectful that her funeral is being held in a large closet somewhere in a casino. Am I still at the Istanbul? I can't tell, but it's unimportant.

One of the other cops - for it appears that I'm a cop - tells me that the dead woman was a psychic who could communicate telepathically with cats and dogs. From beyond the grave she "called in" a tip. Some assholes were running some sort of animal torture operation in the city. That's when we notice the pack of stray dogs beckoning us to follow them. SWAT is notified and my partner and I take off after the dogs.

Somehow, SWAT already figured out where to go because they're waiting at the location - a large warehouse in the middle of a lightly-forested area that has no business being in Southern Nevada - when my partner and I arrive with the dogs. The dogs run into the facility and we all follow. Immediately, we're fired upon.

One gunman appears on a catwalk and I return fire, flying through the air in an ill-advised homage to a John Woo movie. I can see my partner duck behind cover. A second gunman appears, wearing a wolf-mask, and rushes me. He's holding something in his hand and clearly wants to grapple, but I bring my pistol to bear quickly enough that I fire a bullet point-blank into his face. Before I even notice any spray...

...I wake up, spooning my beautiful wife, who is not Gia. I get the sensation that this woman isn't American, and though she's not awake, I know she's from a Commonwealth country. The world seems perfect, lying next to the woman of my dreams.

***

And then I wake up, for real this time, spooning my cat.

Cat aside, everything is weird to me because this is the first "dream within a dream" I can ever remember having.

Like I requested earlier... analyze that.

6 comments:

Brian Miller said...

as jacked up as the dream is...i am more concerned with the reality you waking up spooning your cat...smiles.

Harnett-Hargrove said...

Could be....

Wanting to hang onto your carefree school days represented by sin-in-the-desert locale, the dreamer is satiated with this sophomoric carefree memories. Then travels the dark hallway to be born again, transmuting into a dancer --- another seemingly carefree career.
None the less, the dreamer is intimidating and has long elaborately list of historic accomplishments that he himself vaguely believes, possibly because he had been wasted during this entire episode. The alleged ‘real life’ was obviously waiting on the dreamer, wanting to know where you had been.
But this REAL dancer-life seem again to be a mask dissolving into another dangerous life far more compatible. It is initiated with a dark death/rebirth of a newer self. The human beasties and dangers of an adult life are revealed. Different playpen, same game. From superficial to emanate death, the microcosm of the human condition. And the dreamer still wakes up safe, and safe again. Always safe.

...but may be not. -J

SY said...

I've had crazy dreams that I am either glad have slipped from my mind or wish I could hold on to longer.. This dream is an inbetweener.

Hot GIRL and dead woman... HMMM see what I mean?

Kristen Haskell said...

I can't analyze that but I think it is a cool story and I would love to see it turned into a semi-animated film. I am not too familiar with the film industry or the proper terms so I beg your pardon but I think it would be cool if it was like "Sin City." I think Rodriguez would do a better job then Woo because Woo is too Epic for this tale. It needs to be gritty, dark and sexy.

Oh I do have some analysis for your dream you need to make it into a movie and that is what your dream is telling you. You need to be its writer.

Kristen Haskell said...

Oh I think it would also be cool if Gia (the old super model (now deceased) could be the face of the Gia in your dream for your movie. BTW thanks for you help earlier.

Siobhan said...

Oh! I had a dream within a dream recently. It was my first dream within a dream too. And now I'm struggling to remember it!! Ughh this will bug me...

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