Only a Dream Away

Hawaiian barbecue, Brian May does a headstand

ACT I:

Martin and I are in Hawaii, in the lobby of some posh hotel. It is night. I am checking out a fountain running indoors. In and out of the dream, images, snippets: a man eating barbecue which he bought from a street vendor at the front desk; an elderly Asian couple arrive with their very young grandson to see a movie at the hotel -- apparently there is built-in theatre there. The grandfather has a piece of paper and money for tickets and says they are here to see "Madagascar 2." The lady at the ticket booth shows him the marquee -- their movie is not one that is playing there.

ACT II:

I am watching Brian May being interviewed on TV or perhaps on a movie screen. They are showing snippets of his life, at different times in his career with Queen. It is not footage I recognize, and shows a very different kind of Brian -- wild, a prankster. There is footage of him in his boyhood home, where he has returned after having become famous -- in the clip he is in his 20s. He is sitting on his too-small-looking bed in a humble room with drab floral wallpaper and low pitched ceilings. Then they show a black and white clip of him doing a headstand and turning around on his hands. He is able to keep the acrobatics up for awhile before falling down offscreen.

Rilke and Buckley

OK, here's one of the more bizarre ones I've had in awhile, and my recollection is sketchy. This is from last night:

I am in Rainer Maria Rilke's body. It is the early 20th century; teens, maybe '20s. I am wearing a dark brown suit, which I observe on my legs and forearms. I am walking around a small room. To my left, an old woman comes and sits on a (green velvet?) sofa across from my desk. The sofa has an arched back and the velvet is set in a polished dark wood frame. She looks very prim. I feel she might be related to me, but she reaches over and grabs her boxy little purse from a nearby spot in the room where she was standing before, and clutches it to her body. I wonder if she thought it wasn't safe, if she thought I might steal something from her.

This thought bothers me. It bothers me also that she is here. Why is she here? I have to work! I have to find a way to ignore her.

To this end, I walk to a credenza on which there rests a record player and a record. The record is by Tim Buckley. I remove the disk from its sleeve and, without putting it on, I can hear the music. On the paper-covered center, where the song listing usually is on records, there is a picture of Buckley and it is moving as a movie, and he is singing along with the music I hear.

(My lucid self jumps in at this point and says, "What the hell is a 70s folk-rock artist doing in an early 20th-century poet's office?" Also, it is not an album I recognize.)

I put aside the vinyl and look at the album cover. It is a photograph of Buckley but in the lower-left-to-middle area is the floor in front of him, essentially a blank, tan-colored space. I take a pen and begin to draw a shape in that space, and the shape resembles a jigsaw puzzle-piece. I think, either as Rilke or lucidly as myself (they are starting to blur now), "This is where Jeff goes."

Freddie Mercury, short stories, a pug

I am visiting my parents' home and discover that my little brother has brought home a very special guest: Freddie Mercury. He looks as he did in the News of the World period (1977).

I can hardly believe we have such rock royalty at our home, an idol of mine since adolescence -- let alone the fact that he has been dead now for over a decade!

He looks beautiful, electric, magnetic. He doesn't say much but he smiles and he lets me stare at him; I regard him as some gentle, strange, magical, mythical being, something that would not manifest in mundane reality. He knows it but doesn't seem to mind. We look at each other. He looks relaxed and does not seem very self-conscious despite my ogling. I touch his hands.

(This was one of those marathon dreams that seemed to go on forever and ever, though there was not much action, just a lot of gazing. Freddie morphed through several outrageous costume changes during the dream, true to his mercurial nature.)

My brother announces that he has brought Freddie home (and throughout the dream I refer to him simply as 'Fred') to record him reading short stories. Very short stories in fact -- only a few sentences long. I wonder why I have not been asked to write a short story for Fred to read; I imagine what his voice would sound like reading my work. I set off to begin writing a story.

At some point, a pug dog appears. Freddie appears to be pleased by its appearance. I bend down to pet it and make a joke about pug dogs (one I heard my husband say in real life) -- that they seem to have been bred to have breathing problems. This doesn't seem to amuse my rock star guest, who by this point appears to have started to change character. He has a harder edge to him.

Freddie and I are sitting close to each other at the dining room table and my brother is showing us the script. I come closer to read it and Freddie puts a hard hand to my throat, holding it there, to prevent me from either moving or speaking. I struggle but he turns and smiles as though it is for my own good. He starts to speak with an un-English accent... and then in fluent German, and he begins to morph into a literature professor I had in college in real life (whom I do not have any hard feelings about). I think to myself, "This isn't Fred anymore!"

Nail polish, the Simpsons re-do Yellow Submarine, and what John Lennon has to say about it

ACT I

I am in a five-and-dime looking at cheap make-up. A middle-aged saleswoman comes up to me and gestures at a display of brown eyeliner. She points out that they are a high-end department store brand. "Would you like to guess how much we are selling them for?" she asks me. I low-ball at $8. She says they are selling for half that, and I should really buy some.

I nod but ignore the eyeliner and look at a nail polish display, trying to choose between two very similar glittery pinks.

ACT II

I am at the world premiere of a Simpsons movie remake of the Beatles classic "Yellow Submarine." I have just finished watching the film and the images swirl in my head, a bit confusing; I am definitely confused as to why it was remade in the first place.

It is after dark. The streets are closed off and there is an al fresco dinner taking place for all the notables. Above our heads are huge Thanksgiving Day Parade-style balloons of the major characters.

In the center of my table is a marshmallowy dessert -- a recreation of the Simpsons-style "Nowhere Man." Someone to my left is slicing it. The slices reveal red, white and blue layers.

I look up to find that I have been seated with none other than the Beatles themselves -- all four of them!

John (circa Magical Mystery Tour John) wants to know why anyone felt the need to remake "Yellow Submarine" at all.

The slicing man offers, "Well, think of all the new income it will make for you ... I mean, for your spouse and families."

John gestures at himself and his bandmates and says, "That's all very well and good but you know each one of us had only himself to depend on and we did it all by ourselves."

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Addendum: Interesting as I had a dream about George Harrison on Saturday night, which is what inspired me to start this blog. I'll relate it in full in the 'About Me' section.