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Straitjacket Dreams
The mind is a fucked up place, and I think mine is more fucked up than most. It never ceases to surprise me how my own mind surprises me on a daily basis (yeah, that made sense, huh?), sending me off on a tangent towards some farfetched star in the cosmos of my brain.
As a kid, I figured I was the only person who really existed, and that everybody else were just extras in my life – to make it more interesting for me. The sun was my spotlight and the rest of the world was my stage and my soundtrack. It used to make me feel pretty cool to be the star of my own show. When we talked about religion in school, I figured God was more like a janitor, keeping things running smoothly in my world, changing the bulbs in my garden. I was thrilled that I had decided to subconsciously send astronauts to the moon, invent the concept of dinosaurs, and create Elvis Presley to sing for me, because all those things made me very happy. In my own humble opinion, I had done a pretty good job for a Supreme Ruling Child-God.
Then I grew a little older, and much wiser, and started to wonder if other people also had these thoughts. If these “extras” started to think that they existed at some point, did that mean they willed themselves into an actual state of being? Did they actually go home and have little lives without my knowledge? That really pissed me off, and I tried to reason this out for a long time. I decided that my mind had gifted these extras with a mysterious delusion of self-identity in order to make me pause and think about them; thus, finding a need to step up my own game. I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out which of these extras were likely to think they actually existed. I came to the conclusion that the “real” extras were the ones who were my closest friends, because after all – I played at their house and stuff at times, and they seemed convincing enough in their interactions with their surroundings. It was probably my Divine Reality rubbing off on their illusionary dream world. Good for them. I forgave them for wanting to be real.
Then I hit the teens and started to realize that maybe I was that extra in somebody else’s world? I didn’t feel like I made a damn difference no matter what I did, nor did anybody pay much attention to me. Surely my world would have been a better place if I had been the star in it? Obviously I was the figment of somebody else’s imagination, and not a great one at that. I wanted to find this motherfucker who cast me in such a crappy role in his world and beat the shit out of him. Or maybe at least ask to be promoted to chief villain or something. This was my teen angst, and it only lasted for so long, or until I grew into my skin. Once I was comfortable with myself again that pleasant feeling of superiority settled in once more.
On the other hand, my mind took an interesting turn in my late teens. I met other people who were almost as smart as I was! Perish the thought! I remember talking to this guy in high school, making some uber-smart joke about something totally wacky, and he shot it right back at me with a twist! What the fuck? Was my universe fucking with me again? What was this, fucking mind-rebellion?
Of course, I eventually left the follies of youth behind me, shaking off my misconceptions of the world like the Serpent of Eden shedding its skin. I grew up into a responsible adult, had meaningful relationships with friends and lovers, took on the world, and learned somewhere along the way that I was just another little rat in the big wheel of life, trying to catch up with the other little rats. All delusions of grandeur were buried in childhood memories and all thoughts of superiority were exorcised by the powers of Upper Management.
I learned that there are indeed other people out there with thoughts, dreams, and lives, and some of them are actually smarter than I am.
Once my mind was laid to rest from its previous state of Supreme Rulership of the Universe, it started taking other routes to crash its energy home.
I don’t really think I have ADD. I might have some fucked up version of it though, because my mind works in mysterious ways. For instance, I cannot do two things at once. Just can’t do it. I would fall and break my nose if I were to try and type this and sing at the same time. I can’t stir my tea and talk to my wife simultaneously. Fucked up. However, I am more than likely to outperform everybody else at whatever I do focus on at any given time. Once in “do” mode, I do it better and faster than you. That’s simply the way it is. Just don’t try and ask me what day it is while I’m at it because the chances are I will have a fucking aneurysm and just drop dead.
Being a married man, with a busy family life, I find myself not being able to fully entertain my mental quirks to their fullest extent anymore. I can’t just selfishly lock myself up in a room to write the Great American Novel since there are other more “real” things to deal with these days. I was never good at doing a little here, a little there, and get things done that way. With me it’s all or nothing, my way or the highway, and finish what you started. This translates nowadays to me not doing a lot of creative things, period. I don’t play the guitar at all anymore. I don’t read much either. It takes my brain a couple of hours to unwind and find its groove before I can read or play, and I just don’t have that peace of mind anymore. Do I miss it? Of course, and not at all. I would have to be in that frame of mind to miss it to begin with, and I’m just not there anymore. I have other things to do, not exactly intellectually challenging things, but things that need to be done nonetheless.
This lack of intellectual ejaculation has resulted in very interesting dreams. I am a firm believer in the theory that dreams mean absolutely NOTHING and that they are only the excess flush of your mind, as it’s taking a huge dump every night. The less I have done in the day to stimulate my intellect, the more fucked up my dreams are that night.
Some say weird dreams are symptoms of insanity, and to them I say, “Bring on the strait jacket”. Salvador Dali said, “The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad”. Exactly. People love lunatics. I think if I put my dreams down on paper I could make a fortune. After all, it worked for Dr. Seuss.
My problem is of course, like for most others, that I don’t remember much after I wake up. I will sit there in the darkness of the bedroom and shake my head, vaguely remembering morphing into a coconut cricket to save the planet from the guy in Central Park with a little dolphin in a fish bowl. Or was it a dolphin with a guy in a fishbowl? Or was it…? And then it’s gone. That pisses me off, but also strengthens my theory that the mind just formats its hard drives during the night, freeing up space and keeping you sane in the process. Dreaming is like a virus scan of your mind, and all the things you actually dream are the superfluous files and potentially harmful applications your brain chooses to get rid of.
Can you imagine if all this crap still simmered in your head for days and days, accumulating with time and ultimately building tall spindly spiral towers of insanity that your soul sits perched on like a crazy vulture? We would all be more or less insane, and me more than most. We all need outlets for all the mental energy we have running amuck in our brains, and when you don’t use up your quota for the day, you will pay with deranged dreams in the night instead.
If you start telling a shrink all about your dreams, that will force you to remember them and you will in fact be reinstalling that virus back into your system and go insane. Going to a shrink, or spending time interpreting your dreams, will in fact bite you in the ass instead, since it defies the very purpose of them to begin with. Just like you don’t fish your poop out of the toilet bowl to play with it, you shouldn’t fuck around with your dreams.
Freud is Satan.
“But they mean something!” you cry. No, God isn’t trying to tell you something. He would leave a Post It on your refrigerator if he had something half important to share, and just write “Armageddon” in the sky with big flaming letters when the time comes for that grand event. (And you are not exactly on his list of Top Billion Things To Do anyway, so just chill.) Atheism is where it’s at. That way you’re not put on hold until you die, with crappy music and multiple choice menus to find the RIGHT WAY to leave a message with God. He ain’t picking up because he’s busy cooking the world on a spoon to shoot us all up. We are all extras in his high, the colors of his dancing bear and the weird notes the midgets play him on their nose flutes. We can’t really expect to be on top of our own minds under those conditions.
Just chill and go with the flow. Lunatics have more fun.
