August 20, 2008

  • Dreams

    So, dreams... I guess I kind of have two topics I wanted to talk about as regards dreams, both the "what you see when you sleep" kind and the aspirations of life.

    First off, I have been having some really weird dreams lately... there was one a few days ago involving me being in Pittsburgh with my kilt on Michael and Bev's couch, and this girl who kept putting her hand on my thigh and teasing me about how she would find out the truth about how kilts are properly worn. And I remember that in the dream, this was a continuation of a prior incident where she'd been teasing me about my kilt. And yet, I can't place the girl. I have one name which comes to mind, but it doesn't really make any sense because it's someone with whom I really don't have much contact — I've met her 2-3 times and I recently participated in a drunken phone conversation with her (no, I wasn't one of the people drinking nor was I the person she'd actually called) where she claimed to be one of my "fangirls" but I can't really say that I know her beyond hearing about her from others and having a passing acquaintence. The other weird part of the dream was that the feeling of mixed anticipation and fear as her hand inched up felt very real. In the dream, I was not really interested in the girl in question, and I was a little uneasy about the prospect of being exposed before family and friends, but I also felt comfortable about my body. Which, oddly enough, leads me to the next dream which involved nude posing and Dwarf Fortress. The earliest part of the dream I remember, I was talking to Michael and I noticed that he apparently had Dwarf Fortress running on his oscilloscope at work (incidentally, this is not entirely farfetched. Many digital oscillscopes these days run Windows or Linux) but found that it was actually hooked up to a magnifying device so as to provide a way to zoom into the picture (I've had that as a minor complaint once or twice while playing in that one has a choice between full screen or a fixed-size window as best I can tell). He then proceeded to show me that the ASCII graphics in the game resolved into actual images if you stared at them long enough. In this case, a number of the geographical features turned into nudes when stared at (a classic case of "you find obscenity where you look for it", I guess). And then, all of a sudden, the developer was there and she (yes, I know that the actual developer is male. Dreams being what they are, I didn't remember that then) asked if I wanted to pose for one of these images and I acquiesced. And I think I woke up a bit after that, but not until I had peeled off my clothing and started arranging myself in poses.

    ^_^ Usual million-dollar question, what does it all mean? Well, one school of thought is that dreams are entirely composed of things that you recently saw or experienced. I have been playing a fair amount of Dwarf Fortress in the last week and I have been in Pittsburgh lately (which was where the participation in the drunken phone call came in). The nudes and the odd comfort with my body may be the result of keeping up with The Bare Pit (fair warning, the comic is not sexual, but there is nudity) as well as recently reading some of the Air Gear series which is rather prone to fan service. Another school of thought is that dreams come from deeper psychological conditions — maybe in my mind, I have body issues and these dreams are a way of safely confronting them. ^_^ Then, there's the idea that dreams are prophetic, but I really don't think I can apply that here.

    My second topic is dreams in the form of life goals and aspirations. I recently watched Wanted (I also watched The Dark Knight, but that will probably be another entry). The film greatly departs from the comic book, sticking only to the premise of the wish-fulfillment fantasy of a powerless schlub suddenly gaining the power to take control of his life and revenge upon those who wronged him. In the comic books, this consisted more or less of killing everyone who's angered him from his cheating best friend to the girl who turned him down for Prom in high school. In the film, he's a bit more moral about it with his worst offence being bashing his friend in the face with an ergonomic keyboard. Anyhow, the movie can be kind of summed up as Harry Potter with guns and sex (no relation to Bungle in the Jungle which is more explicitly Harry Potter with sex and guns). It's ridiculous and cheesy enough that it comes out onto the other side into awesomeness. And, at the end of the movie, as in the comic book, the main character addresses the 4th wall. In the movie, the line is "This *is* me taking control; from Sloan, from the fraternity, from Janice, billing reports, ergonomic keyboards, from cheating girlfriends and sack of shit best friends. This is me taking back control of my life. What have you done lately?" Which probably pretty much nails the majority of the viewing audience who's just sitting around wasting their lives watching a movie. And yeah, sometimes I look at my life and wonder what I've done. I sit there and think that I could have put more effort in. I could have done better. But, ultimately, most of us don't get godlike assassination genes or convenient Hollywood scripts, so we just have to eke things out on our own. But maybe, just maybe, I'll get some progress made on my side projects. It would be nice.

    As usual when I saw I'll speak on N topics, I find topic N+1. *sigh* Capoeira is driving me crazy. It's not my lack of progress. It's not that I don't enjoy it. It's that, ever since I started, I've had some part of my brain crunching at the moves in the background and trying to figure them out. Except my body isn't up to it. Which leaves me experiencing the techniques over and over again with all of the muscular movements ghosted onto my sense of kinesthesia and touch as that bit of my brain screams at me, wondering why I can't do what it's just explained to me. Eventually, I'll catch up enough that it will all be back to a background hum, or I'll pick up enough of it to satisfy myself. Until then, I'll be more than a little distracted.