Living the Dream

Do you have freaky ass dreams when you are overtired? I do and always have. They are Technicolor fiestas of every weird thing I have seen or heard, like my brain just vomits details into a narrative that no therapist can unravel. Sometimes, my dreams have recurring elements, like my childhood dream of a witch on a broom chasing my brother and me round and round the dome of the planetarium. And I don’t even have a brother! Or the recurring haunted house dream I had after my father passed away, the one that took place at his farm house in Pennsylvania that would morph into any house I had seen or visited in recent days. Those dreams usually involved a cellar or attic and ended before I could see what was doing the haunting. The more tired I am, the more convoluted my dreams become, and the more tired I am when I awake. Last week was exhausting on many different levels for me, and my brain decompensated by treating me to a few doozies.

The most detailed dream that I remember was an epic that lasted all night. It began with Elton John holding a concert in my driveway. He was the old bloated bad Justin Beiber Elton, not the young flamboyant feather festooned Elton.

For the record, I am not an Elton John fan. I don’t have anything against him, except maybe his late 80’s music. I don’t want to see him in concert, but I don’t mind seeing him on an old Muppet Show.

Anyway, not only was he playing music in my driveway, he was recording a video for his new song, “The Big Hair Song.” Catchy title, no? He strummed his guitar (think George Michael playing “Faith”, because I got my queens confused) in my yard while all my neighbors and friends stood around, thrilled to be part of the video. At some point, not only was I watching all this, I was actually filming it. I rode in the back of a truck holding a big movie camera, which then circled around in the street and stopped in front of my house.

I hopped out of the truck and followed Elton down the street, which was no longer my street but now the street where my friend BD lives. As I kept a safe distance from Elton, I noticed a raccoon scurry out of a bush and up to the curb, where he too watched the musician strolling down the street with his guitar. Suddenly, Elton morphed into a wolf in the middle of the road, but not like a werewolf. He was more a metallic robotic wolf, all modern and smooth lines, not a sci-fi robot wolf with nuts and bolts and sheets of metal riveted together. I rushed up BD’s walk to tell her to come outside, that Elton John was on her street and turned into a wolf and she needed to see it. Before I could knock on the door, BD rushed out of her house, only she wasn’t herself, she was an Afghan hound. She ran over to Elton, where they proceeded to sniff each other’s butts like dogs do when they say hello.

After this display of dog on metal wolf action, I walked back to my house, the crowd dissipating somewhat. BD, now in her human form, was there, along with my gym friend SF. SF is originally from Peru and a devout Catholic. I spent the rest of my dream trying to convince SF that she was really Jewish because her father was Jewish which meant that she was as good as in. She argued the point over and over that she was raised Catholic, that her mother was Catholic, and that there was no way she was Jewish. I told her it didn’t matter what she thought she was, she was a Jew anyway because her father was, and that no matter what she chose to believe, it didn’t negate the fact that she was a Semite.

And that was the first dream, which left me totally exhausted.

The next night I found myself just as worn out, and I slept the sleep of the disturbed. I had a dream that I visited a new friend’s house. I just met this dude, the father of one of my daughter's classmates, on a field trip with her class, and I had a dream I went to his house because I needed to use the bathroom. He showed me where it was, and instead of being a regular bathroom, a room with a sink, toilet, and shower, it was just a large square of grass surrounded by four glass walls.

I asked him if he intended me to squat and do my business on the indoor lawn patch like a dog, and he assured me he would hose it off when I was through. I squatted low on the grass, my feet flat, and peed, thinking to myself that I sure hope I did not have to do more than that because there was no way I was crapping on this man’s grass. I remember him giving me a little wave while turning his hose on the lawn while I showed myself out of the house, and then I woke up.

I have quite a few dreams about peeing. I don’t know about the clinical interpretation of pee dreams, but the way I see it, my brain is trying to wake me up before I wet the bed. One of my great fears in life is that one day I will be too old to wake up before that happens. I am going to have to sleep in the geriatric version of Huggies Overnites.

I would also like to point out that the above dreams did not occur because of any chemical enhancement. No Ambien, Benedryl, or melatonin was used in the making of these dreams, just my own crazy brain. I don’t know why or how dreams are the way they are, but after a few nights like that, I sure do need some rest.