Thursday, November 12, 2009
Dream: the Movie
I had a dream in the last few nights where, at an opportune moment, I could speak fluent Chinese. As I said whatever it was to the person who was surprised I knew Chinese, I glanced downward and realized that there was a subtitle of what I said floating at about chest level, directly in front of me and facing away.
Aside from the occasional stress-dream where I'm in college and don't know my class schedule (seriously, I'm 32, why won't you go away?), one of the most common aspects of my dreams is that they seem like movies (and I treat them within the dreams as movies that I'm experiencing). Once I was in a buddy-cop action-comedy with a waking-life friend. Another time I was in a horror movie where my friends and I kept dying at the hands of things like zombies, then coming back to life to die in new ways (not as much of a nightmare as it sounds like, actually, and it ended up as a poem).
Often when the dreams aren't so blatantly you're-in-a-movie, there are still movie aspects. The subtitles. Dialogue I think of as dialogue within the dream (e.g. when I said "Time for my big speech" or words to that effect). Events that I try to rewind and play again because the way they happened didn't fit with how they "ought" to go by dramatic standards (a last-minute basketball shot that misses, the bad guy winning something). Even another of my recurring non-movie dreams, where I'm continually trying to get over/through the mountains to travel across Colorado but never getting anywhere, feels like it has establishing shots, airborne tracking shots, etc.
I do enjoy movies (and especially where they intersect with video/computer games, which often seems to be where my dreams come in as well), but I'm not a buff the way several people I know are, so I'm not sure exactly where it comes from. What oddities do you notice in your dreams, and what significance do you ascribe to them?
Aside from the occasional stress-dream where I'm in college and don't know my class schedule (seriously, I'm 32, why won't you go away?), one of the most common aspects of my dreams is that they seem like movies (and I treat them within the dreams as movies that I'm experiencing). Once I was in a buddy-cop action-comedy with a waking-life friend. Another time I was in a horror movie where my friends and I kept dying at the hands of things like zombies, then coming back to life to die in new ways (not as much of a nightmare as it sounds like, actually, and it ended up as a poem).
Often when the dreams aren't so blatantly you're-in-a-movie, there are still movie aspects. The subtitles. Dialogue I think of as dialogue within the dream (e.g. when I said "Time for my big speech" or words to that effect). Events that I try to rewind and play again because the way they happened didn't fit with how they "ought" to go by dramatic standards (a last-minute basketball shot that misses, the bad guy winning something). Even another of my recurring non-movie dreams, where I'm continually trying to get over/through the mountains to travel across Colorado but never getting anywhere, feels like it has establishing shots, airborne tracking shots, etc.
I do enjoy movies (and especially where they intersect with video/computer games, which often seems to be where my dreams come in as well), but I'm not a buff the way several people I know are, so I'm not sure exactly where it comes from. What oddities do you notice in your dreams, and what significance do you ascribe to them?
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Sounds like (in the Chinese-speaking dream) your psyche is implying that you have the ability to communicate in ways you may not be aware you are capable. Are you finding that you've been successful getting your point across lately?
I think the Chinese thing itself is more about wishful thinking--I'd like to have a wider talent base and be able to surprise people with my value. Plus I really like hypercompetent multilingual spy characters.
I've had versions of the dream of being back in school, I'm late and can't find the classroom where I'm supposed to go, or being back at a place where I used to work and (again) am late and can't find the office or room where I'm supposed to go. Usually when I have those dreams I'm aware, in the dream, that I'm back at a place where I used to work or go to school, though I never have any sense of why I'm back there.
What I usually take those dreams to be telling me is that I'm feeling somewhat stuck in a rut in some part of my life, spinning my wheels, going over the same ground over and over again, etc.
Several times over the years, after I've been working at a new job for a little while, at some point I'll have a dream where some aspect of the job has worked its way into my life in some fundamental way.
For example, when I worked for an agency that provided services to people who were deaf, I had a dream where I knew much more sign language than I really do (the job I had mostly involved talking on the phone so I didn't need a lot of sign language for the job).
Or, when I was working for a living as a typesetter (a number of years ago, using an older DOS-based system where it was necessary to type many commands into the computer to get it to do anything), I had a dream one night where the entire universe, all of life, operated by computer commands. I was at home, and to do anything I first had to remember the correct computer command and then enter it into the fabric of reality: "Command, Get Up From Couch." "Command, Open Refrigerator Door." A couple of times when I couldn't remember the correct command, I had to just sit there for a minute until I remembered, before I could do whatever it was I was trying to do.
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What I usually take those dreams to be telling me is that I'm feeling somewhat stuck in a rut in some part of my life, spinning my wheels, going over the same ground over and over again, etc.
Several times over the years, after I've been working at a new job for a little while, at some point I'll have a dream where some aspect of the job has worked its way into my life in some fundamental way.
For example, when I worked for an agency that provided services to people who were deaf, I had a dream where I knew much more sign language than I really do (the job I had mostly involved talking on the phone so I didn't need a lot of sign language for the job).
Or, when I was working for a living as a typesetter (a number of years ago, using an older DOS-based system where it was necessary to type many commands into the computer to get it to do anything), I had a dream one night where the entire universe, all of life, operated by computer commands. I was at home, and to do anything I first had to remember the correct computer command and then enter it into the fabric of reality: "Command, Get Up From Couch." "Command, Open Refrigerator Door." A couple of times when I couldn't remember the correct command, I had to just sit there for a minute until I remembered, before I could do whatever it was I was trying to do.
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