Commentary

I had a dream last night that I logged into my blog administration panel today and there was a lively discussion on my last couple of posts via comments that were stuck in the moderation queue (i.e. waiting for me to approve them before they would appear on the page). Then I woke up. Weird. I guess I wish I had more comments, but most of the comments I get these days are via facebook. Ah Internet, never stop changing.

I Am So Tired, You’re Pissing Me Off

A few times a year, when under large amounts of stress, I have what I’ve come to term ‘pressure dreams’. Each one is a bizzare mixing pot of all my recent fears, my current deficiencies, and my long-term goals. When I woke this morning, I could largely recall last night’s ‘pressure dream’. I’ve tried to recount it (with footnotes) below. Apologies in advance for continuity weirdness. It is, after all, a dream. Also, I’ll not be mentioning the name of the female subject of the dream, although a number of my friends would be familiar with her. I’ve dreamt of her a number of times.

I was at work (which was more like college in this dream) chatting with a friend of mine, asking if she’d had the opportunity to watch any of the DVDs I’d lent her recently (1). She told me that she’d not yet, and I passionately told her that she really needed to watch the Concert DVD that I’d put in the stack. Although it was from one of my favorite artists, I’d not watched it yet. I’d read reviews on the internet to the effect that it was amazing, and I had a kind of ‘feeling’ that there was something special about it. As I continued my empassioned description, I started telling her about what happened in the DVD. Only then did I realize that I was in the DVD, and was reliving my part in it(2).

Somewhere in suburban Tokyo, there’s an ampitheatre at a smallish college where, virtually unannouced, the artist had masterminded a great event. She would start playing, word would spread, and the whole thing would be filmed to become a concert DVD. Somehow, I was in Japan and stumbled across this (3). Climbing the large number of steps at the front of the theatre (which were very much like a traditional american courthouse), I noticed that I was one of the first people to have noticed this concert, which was already underway. As the dream continued, people flooded into the venue, to the point where the overcrowding made me decide to go outside. From outside, I listened to the muffled music, upset that I couldn’t be at the front of the crowd anymore (even though I’d left of my own volition, I knew I couldn’t make it back inside – knowledge I was certain of in that way that you can only be in a dream). I’d only been standing on the steps out front for a short time, however, when I was called back inside by one of the staff, and ushered to a ‘backstage’ area near the side of the stage. Somehow, I was now staff (4).

I suddenly knew that she wasn’t going to finish her set – she was just going to head off stage while the band jammed as though she was taking a break, and never return! It was the only way to make it away from the venue without being mobbed by overexcited fans. Somehow, I’d always been the go-to person – the one who would wisk her away and make sure she got back to the hotel safe. I fought to do just that through the nearly dehabilitating power she had over me(5). We ended up in a car with the driver taking us to the prearranged hotel. By the time we got there it was incredibly late, and we were both utterly exhausted and shellshocked(6). The shabby hotel was hyper-vivid in that dreamlike way. I remarked on how the hall’s wallpaper was incredibly spooky – it was a tobacco smoke-stained yellow-white background with these sinister patterns running over it in black (7). She responded by opening the door to her room, letting the light flood out and revealing the design as a bright red on a mellow tan color – the light in the hallways was quite dim due to the lateness of the hour and had caused the colors to look much more frightening than they actually were.

We split up into the two rooms that had been reserved, and I was surprised a couple of moments later when she knocked on the door and showed me how her room had flooded and asked to hang out in my room until the hotel resolved the issue. She sat down on the bed while I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. By the time I returned she was fast asleep, curled up on her side in the twin-sized bed. Looking at her, I was overcome by how much I admired her, how lucky I was to be chosen to help her, and how incredible it was that she trusted me enough to fall asleep in my bed even though she’d only met me a few hours ago. With that dream-certainty, I knew that she knew me completely, inside and out, and accepted everything about me. I got an extra blanket and curled up on the big comfy chair with the footrest on the other side of the room to sleep. I was in love.

This morning’s drive to work was utterly brutal. I felt like I’d not slept at all; I was frazzled from the stress of still not having finished my map; and on top of it all I’d lost the love of my life when I woke up and realized it was a dream. Love in a dream is frequently even more complete and real on an emotional level than any love you can have in your waking life. Listening to the radio, I realized that I should put in the new CD of the artist in my dream. It would never sound this good again! As I listened to the songs, that voice, I realized that the love had already faded, leaving me only an overwhelming feeling of loss. A feeling not of heartbreak, but of utter hopelessness – not the feeling of having lost a dream-love, but the certainty that any love I find in real life will never be that complete.

(1) A couple of hours before bed, I very briefly considered bringing a couple of DVDs to work Monday to lend to a friend, unsolicited. Although I’m sure he would like them, I’ve often found that people (including myself) have a hard time finding the leisure to watch DVDs they didn’t ask to borrow. I quickly dismissed the idea.

(2) I do appear briefly in a number of Japanese Concert DVDs. In fact, I appear with the friend in question in the special features of a Gackt concert DVD where we were interviewed after the show. They cut all my lines and left only hers.

(3) The artist I dreamt of recently released a new album and I’ve been looking at her concert schedule, forlorn. Unfortunately, she’s playing over the next two months and I won’t be able to make it to Japan to see her. I’ve been trying to see her for over five years now – she’s the last Japanese artist that absolutely blows me away but that I have not seen live.

(4) I was actually staff in Japan for several of boo’s concerts. As a result, I frequently have dreams of being an off-stage staff member for Japanese artist I like, with startling authenticity.

(5) In real life, this artist is easily one of my favorites. After watching a concert DVD of her, I once told boo that ‘I can no longer imagine living without that voice in my life.’ (A bit melodramatic, but you get the point.)

(6) Precisely how I felt when i went to sleep last night after working on my map for over 16 hours this weekend, and only to find a deal-breaking bug in my last round of testing.

(7) This imagery is clearly from the dungeons in Persona 3. Odd, since I don’t find the game sinister at all in real life.