Dream a little Dream of Me

"...living in that foggy, jumbled blur which is a whole lot like the ragged edge of sleep, that gray zone between light & dark, or between sleeping and waking, or living & dying, where you know you're not unconscious any more but don't know yet what day it is or who you are or what's the use of coming back at all..." - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

I am currently reading One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. I've owned this book for roughly four years but never read it. I bought it at a random yard sale my friend Dylan and I passed by while walking around Media. Why did I post that particular quote? I cant' 100% say. As I read this book, I came to that passage... the only passage that was highlighted. It does however seem quite suitable. I was going to write about my favorite moment of each day... is that point where you're half awake/half asleep. You know you can get up but you force yourself to finish your dream and stay asleep. At that point the dream isn't a "reality" to you anymore, but it's more like a movie playing before you in front of your minds eye. It's that world you wished you lived in sometimes, other times it's a world of horror.

My dreams have never made much sense to me. But i felt like perhaps I'd write a little bit about the dreams I have had in my past. My most recent dreams have been... well... strange to say the least. Here's my favorite most recent dreams:

1) I dreamt a few days ago that the back of my head for some unexplainable reason grew a mouth and eyes. Whenever I spoke, the mouth on the back of my head would move too. That dream freaked me out so much that when I woke up... I literally rubbed the back of my head to make sure there was no face

2) I also recently dreamt I was about to win a spelling bee... but it got interrupted when The Blob came and attacked. I was forced to fight the blob and save the town... no complaints about that dream, it kicked ass.

There's two types of dreams that have been re-occurring and I'm sure when I finally have a nervous breakdown and see a therapist they'll explain to me the deeper means to these:

1) the current reoccurring dreams always involve my teeth falling out... that's just weird

2) Ever since my sophmore year of high school, I've had dreams where I'll be at random locations (School, family party, the mall, a party at a friends house, etc). The location is always some place with high traffic. And in all these dreams, I'm always laying on the ground with my eyes closed. I hear people say how I'm "asleep" and then they have conversations. The entire dream is just me listening in on their conversations. I (not so) shamefully most admit that since roughly my freshmen year of college... I have actually done this very tactic at parties where I felt out of place.

There's one more dream that I think should be mentioned. This dream makes no sense to me. As far as I know, there is no deeper meaning to it. But it is the scariest dream I think I've ever had. In retrospect... it's not scary. But I had this dream probably when I was only 5/6 years old but to this day I still distinctly remember it. This dream made me afraid to go to bed for DAYS after having it. This build up is simply to make you really let down (and maybe laugh) when you read how kinda lame the dream is.

I was 5 or 6 years old. I was standing in an alley with Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters. Suddenly Slimer came out and flew at Peter (much like in the first movie) except this time... he didn't slime Peter... he snapped him in half. As if that sight of a man being snapped down the middle wasn't frightening enough... he wasn't dead. Both halves worked and acted perfectly fine. Peter was complaining about how much it hurt but not in a screaming way, in a monotone, almost sarcastic way. Meanwhile the legs where just sorta walking around. I remember eventually he got up and started crawling towards me and that's when I woke up screaming.

I think dreams are such an interesting thing. They always make me wonder about my own decisions and wants. I think everyone has suffered from what I call post-dream depression or "the puppy wasn't real" syndrome. When I was younger I had at least 2 dreams where my family had gotten a new adorable puppy. The dreams were so vivid that when I woke up... I was depressed the dog in fact didn't exist. One of the times, i literally believed the dog did exist for the first few minutes of being awake and the depression hit in a sudden wave.

What I really don't understand however is the love in my dreams. I very rarely have sex dreams or "wet dreams". In fact the amount of "shit, gotta change my sheets" moments in my 24+ years of existence could be counted on a single hand. It seems as if I tend to cock block myself, even in the realm of dreams. The most recent was a dream in which Sarah Silverman kept throwing herself all over me, but I told her I "couldn't do that to Jimmy (kimmel)". The weirdest part of this is that I'm not really a Jimmy Kimmel fan. Don't watch his show, or movies or anything. I don't hate the guy but I mean, his ex-girlfriend wanting to bang me should have NO barring on me taking up the offer.

Frequent readers of my blogs, or even people unfortunate enough to have given me their screen name and thus get Emo-y IMs from me, know that I don't have what I would consider "a luck filled love life." There's currently someone in my life who I'm very, very much in love with me. This can hardly be called news. I can own up to being "in love" with at least... 4 different girls in the last 3 years. I still stand by my feelings of love towards those women. There's something very different about this particular girl though. I like (love) her, from the best I can tell she however simply enjoys my company. This isn't really particularly different than the previous "loves". Also unlike the previous "loves" there are countless moments where I second guess her feelings towards me and think that maybe... just maybe... she loves me in return. But I write it off as wishful thinking and move on with my life.

However, normally, my friends and family members who meet the past girls... tend to echo my thoughts "it's just wishful thinking Matt" they'll say. However with this new girl... everyone sees the same thing that i see. They see "A perfect couple" or "someone who clearly is in love with me"... I cried a little when my sister texted me recently saying "I hope you too end up together. You're so cute together and you seem so much happier when you're around her". It almost seems like the only person who DOESN'T agree to these opinions would be the girl in question... and I'm fairly certain she tends to get last say on her relationship status.

This girl. This person who I "love". Has never, ever made a cameo in any dreaming. Not once as far as I can recall. Not in a sexual way, not in a friendly side-kick way... not even in the background of an extra to the best of my knowledge. I spent most of my day at work thinking about her and her moving and how there's so much I wish I could say but it wouldn't change anything. I've written a rough draft of a screen play about this person, mentally made a mix CD for when she leaves in a few months... but yet... at night when I go to bed and can go into a whatever world I want to be in... she is never there.

I'm not a deep person, I'm not subtle, I'm not even very smart. But I really wish that I could understand why I feel like any of this matters. I am fairly certain this girl is going to move away, and our friendship will suffer and end. Not on bad terms... but strictly a distance issue. And strictly because, I can't help but feel like I'm a very interchangable and replaceable person in her life that will easily be forgotten. I'll however never forget her. And at the end of the day, that's my biggest problem.

The Rob Gordon Traits

When I was in high school, back before the world of facebook and twitter… everyone in the world had a livejournal. I had such a livejournal and I would update it quite frequently. I specifically remember when I was in my senior year of high school, my last class of the day was a computer education class. It was the easiest A in the world. In a 45 minute class we were required to write one page of text and print it. After that if we had time left over in class (roughly 40 minutes or so) we could just go online. So basically the class was “sit on the internet and get an A”.

I’ll never forget taking a quiz on a website to post on my LJ (what us cool kids called LiveJournal in those days) titled “What John Cusack Character are you?” All I wanted to be was Lloyd Dubler or maybe even LaneMeyer. The result was Rob Gordon from High Fidelity. I remember being upset. Don’t get me wrong, I love High Fidelity but Rob Gordon’s character is a selfish asshole… was I really that? I mean I guess I do love music but still!

Recently though I’ve realized that the survey is extremely accurate. I think most guys wish they were Lloyd Dubler or Lane Meyer because that’s clearly want women want (or act like they want). Lane Meyer is a nerdy guy who gets a little obsessed but he doesn’t let his short comings get the best of him and at the end of the day skis the K12 and gets the French girl (who was far hotter than his original girlfriend anyway). What guy wouldn’t want that ending in their life?

Then there’s Lloyd Dubler, no one exemplifies undying love like Lloyd. The infamous “In your Eyes” moment is gut-wrenching at times because when look at his face it is a face of someone who doesn’t want to live. He doesn’t just like Diane Court, he doesn’t lust over her, he is head-over heels in love with her.

But Rob Gordon? Rob has had multiple relationships (easily more that Lloyd and Lane combined) but he’s never totally satisfied. I re-watched High Fidelity and it saddened me how much I related to Rob. The dialogue he says is painfully close to thoughts I’ve had myself.

I’ve had friends fuck girls they knew I liked. I have girls that are friends in my life that I want nothing more than to be with, but I know it won’t happen and instead have to force smiles when they move on to their new relationship. Granted my relationship life is very limited compared to Rob, but the amount of crushes that I’ve had are quite comparable.

I think at the end of the day, most guys are Rob Gordon, whether they admit it or not. They wonder where they went wrong in relationships, how they fucked up with this person or that person. Who is the new guy your ex is with? Was she seeing him while you were both together? I’ve even wanted to track down some of the past relationships and see if they’re unhappy, just to make myself feel better. Men are strange creatures indeed.

I guess that survey all those years ago were right. I’m just like Rob Gordon… just without a record store.