February 3, 2011

  • Dream Death, Phantom Bed Bodies, and Jobs

    So, I died in my dreams last night. Not the first time it's happened, and I know it happens to people in dreams all of the time. The only peculiarity I feel I have from my hearing of the accounts of others is that I don't think I've ever woken up when I die in my dreams. Not even in this one where I was blown to bits. I guess a bit of context would help here. As usual, much of the dream has fled from my memory upon waking, but I was helping out with a movie shoot.

    I was supposed to join this guy on a speedboat while carrying a Fed-Ex-like package. We'd drive back to the house whereupon I'd navigate my way through the bad guys to deliver the package. Right off, things started going wrong. We were supposed to have a practice take where the first guy jumped in, just to be sure the boat was safe, but after he jumped in, everyone starts yelling for me to jump in and that we only had enough film for one take. So I ran up and jumped in.

    Immediately, we started getting shot at, something supposed to happen later in the movie. I started firing back with my pistol and, unusual for me in a dream, my accuracy was lousy, so I was very focused on that part of the task. Once we ground ourselves on shore, I take an extra second to line up a shot when someone yells that the package is going to blow any moment now. I toss the package behind me toward the water and dive forward as I feel a burst of warmth and pressure against my back and then a surprisingly painless landing several feet away. First thing I hear is someone yelling, "He got blown to pieces!"

    I tried to call out that I was OK but couldn't make a sound. It wasn't until a moment later when a guy came by with a spatula (morbid sense of humor my subconscious has) and pressed down on me that I was freed from my position and saw that there was just semi-solid liquid there on the sand and that the spatula had pressed it into a corporate logo for a burger company (at which point I remembered the film had corporate sponsorship). Sometime shortly after that, "Something's Afoot" started playing, establishing that I just might have been the butler in the movie. my memories are a little hazy as to what happened next, but I remember floating all over the place trying to communicate with people until finally, Jamie was able to hear me and I seemed fully corporeal again. Seems death in this universe was relatively temporary with the only real side effect being that all of your appointments, contracts, and other obligations got canceled, although somehow, I picked up a few other appointments which I promptly started missing because I didn't know about them.

    Some time after that, I woke up partially, but only to experience a phantom body sensation. I don't know if this is common to anyone else — I've gone through it a number of times myself but a quick search on Google didn't seem to come up with any hits — but occasionally I wake up and for a few minutes I'm convinced I'm not alone in my bed. It's not the classic incubus nightmare where there's the sensation of someone sitting on your chest and keeping you from moving, breathing, or even turning to look at whatever is staring at you malevolently where your eyes don't go. Rather, it's a very benign presence, frequently someone I know, and when I initially wake up, I'm actually snuggling up against their warmth although almost inevitably, I lose them and then spend a few panicked moments of groping for them through the blankets and finding that they're gone whereupon I fully wake and realize that I'm all alone. I know that it's probably just the sensation of waking up from a pleasant dream while in warm blankets, but there's always that sharp sense of loss when I realize that they're not there anymore...

    Well, anyhow, enough time blogging about my odd dreams. I woke up to a few messages from recruiters as a result of a minor tweak I made on my resume on Monster.com. I'll be calling them back shortly now that I've had my coffee and separated all of the dream fragments from reality by talking them apart. Next week, I'm due to have an interview with a fellow at the career center and apparently my timing was good for calling in because CMU has their job fair next week.  Things are falling into place, much as they often seem to do when I relax and tell God that I've been doing my part of things and that I'm hoping that he'll help me the rest of the way. Today will be a good day.