Saturday, February 14, 2009

A Series of Dreams


Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.
Sigmund Freud

Nothing too very scientific, just thinking of a series of dreams....
Bob Dylan

...there's this dream I had, around the time of the Clinton impeachment hearings, and a few months after I’d passed my qualifying exams....I realize there’s still something more I need to do to fully pass...another examination....turns out it’s a face-to-face thing, with one examiner...who, as it turns out, is none other than the senator from Mississippi, Trent Lott...with his smooth Southern accent and perfectly coiffed hair...and I know, the minute I walk in and see him, that I’m doomed, that he's gonna fail me for purely partisan reasons...and he seems to acknowledge that, saying “look I don’t wanna ruin your life,” suggesting things I might do while waiting until I can re-take the exams...so I start pleading with him, telling him I’ve already started my dissertation...he seems interested and asks what it’s about...I start to tell him it has to do with Native Americans...immediately realizing that I should have said “Indians” since the term “Native Americans” pegs me as a liberal...and I’ve therefore sealed my doom....

...a mathematical dream—starting out with figuring out grades on a grid—what happens if you go by elevens instead of tens, up to 110, thinking that it’s simple, but then I realize that 110 isn’t 11x11, but 11x10, and that in fact 11x11 is something completely unsymmetrical—not the perfect 111 one might expect, or even 110, that 11’s lose their magical quality when multiplied beyond the single numerals (since even 110 isn’t 1010), and I see this as something violent, bloody and personally tragic for poor 11...

...series of fragmented dreams in cough-filled night, in which I'm the mafia, and the coughs some kind of foe or possibly inside informant, ruining all of my carefully laid plans...

...one of those cable news talking heads is doing a financial report on T.V....and, to dramatically portray the state of the economy, bleeding heavily—blood pouring from his leg like a waterfall on whatever’s below his desk...

....waking from a dream—seeing printed words and hearing a voice, giving a fragmentary review of the dream—criticizing, I think, its weak characterization...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love weird dreams ... I try to work them out after and fail miserably, but it's quite fun. Though you do sound a little feverish still? I hope you are a little better by now.

Looking to the Stars said...

Dreams, the mind freeing itself. I never think too much of my dreams till I dream of water. Water, for me, means there is trouble on the way.

Anonymous said...

The first dream, Trent Lott, The Gate Keeper, its your mind telling you, reminding you there are things people want you to say, but that you won't know what that is, until its too late and you have indicated the opposite. It is the tension between actual acquired skill as opposed to the schmooze-factor of keeping time with tenured *idiots. Fear of becoming a syncophant, and fear of what happens if you can't at least fake it for a moment til you get through the door.

Second dream-11s, 10 is the number of completion. 9 is mysticism, but 10 is almost like heaven. 11 is 10 +1, never being satisfied with what you have. Feeling driven even when its all there for you, inspite of your disbelief. Surely there must [always] be more than *this. Its non-symetrical value is because it is a prime number.

The mafia dream--you needed more cough suppressant or to stay up and drink coffee to expectorate, so you could either have productive coughs or sleep.

Blood pouring from the leg of the pundit--speaking of the economy-- equals the true cause of the economic issues are the *Under the Table deals, i.e., sweet heart deals, kickbacks, lack of oversight or meaningful prosecution of people who participate in those things. Desperation to get Public's attention which is the reason for the melodrama, but the blood is real, as is the metaphore for *under the table, also code for paying someone without reporting it to the IRS or Social Security.

The last seems like it you figured it out.
:)

Lana Gramlich said...

Dreams sure can be something else! I find it easier to decipher them when I can look at a continuous series. One dream about XYZ might not be so clear, but when I see XYZ in 5 dreams of 7, it's much more "aHA!"

Anonymous said...

Jay, your dream brought back memories of when I was working on my thesis--I was so consumed with every aspect of it that I couldn't lay it to rest--not even while I slept. I remember one evening--I stayed up until about 2 a.m., stuck on a statistical problem. Finally, I was so exhausted, I decided to go to bed. In my dreams that night, I solved the problem--and it was so real to me. I woke up right after the dream and knew that I should go write down the steps I had dreamed of--but I was just so exhausted that I couldn't get out of bed!

I did solve the problem--although it took me quite a while longer. I used to wonder if the steps I dreamed about would have actually worked had I written them down. I'll never know.

Melinda

Anonymous said...

That Trent Lott dream sounds like a verifiable nightmare. Just his presence alone is enough to make me shudder.