Hi! This is the first time I’ve ever sat down to write my column during a dream, so bear with me if things are weirder than normal. I mean normal for me, which by normal standards isn’t really too normal at all. Aw heck, you know what I’m trying to say. Or maybe not. But you won’t be reading this anyway, since this is just a dream and I’m only really doing it for myself.
“Just a dream”? No. This is a Big Mac among dreams–make that a Venice Pizza #15 with onions dream; the ultimate in flavor and aroma, color and texture, and with an aftertaste that can remain in the brain for years just laying low until it suddenly explodes and you’ve got to have another one so please excuse me while I hop on my bike and head on up El Cajon Boulevard to pig out.
Back again. Damn, that was good.
People used to talk about time compression in dreams, how what you experience in dreams–events covering hours or days–actually occurs in your mind within seconds. I never believed them before but I do now. This dream I’m having now has been going on for what seems like weeks and up until now I’ve been having far too much fun to want to snap out of it and wake up. When I do (I almost said if I do) it’s back to the normal grind and it’ll be election day and I’ll have to be sure to vote and pick up those prints at the photo shop and to make it to Winston’s by 6pm for Trivia with Brandy.
Which is essentially when this dream began. I went to sleep Monday night and seemed to wake up in a different universe. I did indeed go out to vote but ran into an old flame who took up much of the afternoon (strenuous but rewarding) so I had to postpone the visit to the photo shop. It was at Winston’s that I first realized that the entire day had been a dream, and that the dream was turning into a nightmare. One of the big screen TV’s was silently tuned in to some network’s election coverage and I watched, amazed, as a map of the United States began bleeding. Hour after hour it hemorrhaged, drowning state after state in putrid pools of red. No more amber waves of grain–no, thousands upon thousands of square miles were turning into crusting scabs all wailing a discordant fanfare for the emerging victor:
Il Douchebag!
Clearly, Mr. Sandman was hard at work.
Usually, in a dream, when you realize that you are dreaming, it’s a signal that you’re about to wake up. I got wise to this in my late teens and taught myself that it’s entirely possible to keep the dream going by reciting a certain phrase (“There’s no place like dreams”) three times while clicking one’s heels together three times as well. The ritual must be done with utter solemnity and conviction or it won’t work.
So I decided that even if this dream was becoming an ugly nightmare, it was far too realistic to abandon. Besides, if I could stay clear of nausea-inducing images (I’ve heard that vomiting in dreams is even less fun than in real life) I might be able to have a lot of fun. When it was time to go home, I drove on Highway 8 at over a hundred miles an hour, something I had never dared do before but had long wanted to try. I figured that if I were caught and pulled over, I’d tell the officer to bite my stick shift and tear out again, laughing helplessly. But I got home without incident and hit the sack.
I realized that the dream was still going on when I woke up and turned on the television. The victorious face of Donald Trump is, if possible, even more horrifying than Il Douchebag’s debating face. (Here’s a nightmare just for you: imagine his orgasmic face. Sorry. This is just a dream, anyway. Forgive me.) So I turned off the set and vowed to stay away from television and any newspapers and magazines that would be certain to carry his image for the duration of my dream. And at that I was fairly successful for several “days.”
So I’ve devoted myself in this dream to carrying on most of my normal activities (including binge-watching interesting television series like Desperate Housewives and The Shield and Grey’s Anatomy) but making time to at least think about indulging in behavior I’ve never indulged in before, or even considered. That’s one of the most fun aspects of dreams: the lack of consequences for one’s actions.
I drove up to UCSD one evening with the intent to flash some pretty medical students or just streak through the campus until I decided that the potential for really upsetting some people wasn’t much fun so I drove down to the Children’s Pool near La Jolla cove and flashed the seals. That didn’t do it for me either.
Thought about putting on a Halloween mask and robbing a bank or two but bank robberies always involve violence or the threat of violence and I avoid that stuff, dreaming or not. And I thought back on my freeway-speeding and how I’d endangered a lot of other motorists (even if they weren’t real) and I felt more than a little ashamed of myself.
So these dream-days and dream-nights go on; days turn into weeks and it becomes harder and harder to avoid being confronted with pictures and videos of Donald Trump and so many announcers’ voices calling him “president-elect Trump.” I can take only so much before the reasonable fibers of my being begin to rebel. Maybe enough’s enough?
Yes, I believe I’ve finally had enough of Il Douchebag tainting this, certainly the most vivid and substantial nightmare I could have imagined. Just writing about it here has become surprisingly distasteful. I’m going to force myself to wake up from this dream, finally. It will be Tuesday morning and I’ve got the photo shop and Trivia with Brandy later on, but first I’m going to Cast My Vote and do my part to ensure that the idiot sociopath known as Donald Trump is kept out of the White House.
But first, I just thought of something really fun to do before I wake myself up. I’m going to take a running leap off my balcony and fly around my neighborhood. Naked.
