The Mind is a Many Splendoured Thing

I had stayed up till the early dawn. And I had asked the little man who lives in my alarm clock to wake me at 2pm but I woke before that. My house is haunted and ghost banging on the walls usually mess up my sleeping. An hour before the alarm clock were to go off I was half asleep with a mind that drifted between a late night convo and images of distant lands. Then out of a sudden, as when your computer program crashes in a split second and your wallpaper is thrown in your face, I get this vivid image from a location I don't recognise. Thinking about it, it may have looked like a table at a travel office. My dad is sitting in front of me. He doesn't look at me but past me. His face is worried and it is thin. Not quite as thin as what it later became but thinner than those old Kodak memories that float in my mind. It's like getting a bucket of cold water splashed into your face. I was wide awake in a split second but right away tried to go back to that unknown desk in that unknown room in that unknown location. I got back but the picture was now frozen. I've got a slight headache now and it is a grey and cool day outside. It has almost got the feel of a 1970s' day. The mind is an odd creature that messes with you in surprising ways that you don't expect. It's annoying and I find it fitting that I end this by quoting my friend H.J. Simpson, "Brain, I thought we had an agreement; I leave you along if you leave me alone".

When you're BACK AT THE OLD HOUSE in your dreams...

Last night's very vivid dream. I was in the house that I grew up in. My girlfriend that I was with for a decade (and more than a decade ago) was there. My dad was there. I have a faint notion that my mum was there in the early part of the dream leading up to the part that I can actually remember. My dad was in his blue work-clothes that he wore when he would do some work on the house or the garden. Then he went for a drive to get something. I think I said, "Now that they're out of the house you can play some music" and my girlfriend takes off all her clothes and plays some loud music on a stereo (in the dream there's no stereo or radio, the music just kind of comes from the house itself!). She then puts on a jumper and makes a phone-call. She says to her friend Lisa at the other end of the line, "Now I can finally play some loud pop and rock music". I utter, "bullshit!" and I can immediately see it was a mistake so I lower my voice so that the person on the phone can't hear me, and I continue "You can always play pop music". My girlfriend replies, "Oh, okay". I get a feeling it's not quite okay. In my dream I blame myself for the outburst. Then while she's still on the phone standing next to the old desk in the lounge-room, I walk to the other end of the lounge-room and see a dog outside on a dog-leash. I can't see who's at the other end of the leash. In my dream I recognise the dog but now I can't for the life of me remember whose dog it was. Then a moment later I see who's at the other end. It's my dad and he's coming around the house with the dog. In the dream I reckon he wants the dog to meet our own dog (which was my dog really). In the dream I'm thinking our dog will have a fit when it sees the other dog and it'll start barking like crazy. I think about telling my dad not to bring other dogs around because our dog is old and it'll just have a stroke. Then I woke up.

All of it very strange. And all of it gone. As you know my dad passed away in February. My gf from back then is no longer my gf. My dog got diabetes and was put down. We had her for 12 years. Unfortunately, it happened while I was away for 6 months at some school in 1984/85. In my dream the house looked like it did in the old days when my mum was still with us. In reality my dad changed it all after she passed away. The widow after my dad, his second wife, still lives there. I'm not sure what it all means. Probably the Universe saying, "Get your arse in gear and move on, buttmunch!"


For more of the old dreams click the "dreams" label at the bottom of this post.

So, should I blame David Lynch or a bad childhood?

I had a dream again last night. In my dream I suddenly feel there's something under my right foot so I sit down on my bed and pull off my sock. There's a little head sticking out under my foot! Not a human head but it looks like some weird bird or some shit. Kinda like the baby's head in Eraserhead. It strikes me I actually saw it several days ago but it was still undeveloped under the skin of my foot, and I hadn't bothered to do something about it. Bummer! What to do now! It's Friday (in my dream anyway, in reality it's Monday but actually it wouldn't have made things any better as it's a public holiday here) and my MD's office closes at 12:00 on Fridays. Hmm, maybe if I'm quick I can find another doctor who's open and ask him to do something about the head under my foot. But then it occurs to me I should probably wash my foot first. How do I do that? Where do I go? ZAAP!! and as it happens in dreams I suddenly find myself somewhere else. I'm in a place that looks like a hallway in a school or factory or some such. Hey, there's the loos, great I can wash my foot there. But I probably need some help, so I start yelling, "I need help, can some pirates help me"! I have no idea as to why pirates would be good at helping me with washing my foot that has a head attached to it and soon I realise it was a daft idea cos although two pirates do turn up, they are members from some youth gang that just happen to... dress like pirates. I realise I'm in trouble but fortunately I woke up. Damn dream!

Note to self: Don't ask pirates for help if you've got a weird growth somewhere. Bad idea!

Another crazy dream.

I’m in the kitchen of the house where I grew up (and where my dad still lives). The kitchen looks like in the old days and I’m in the front of the fridge with a thermometer in my hand trying to figure out where to put it: in the fridge or on top of it? There’s already one in the fridge so I decide on putting it on top of the fridge (which would have been impossible in real life as there was no space on top of the fridge) but before I get that far my dad enters the kitchen. He’s about to go to bed but just wants to tell me that if I plan on putting the thermometer in the street in front of the mailbox maybe it’s not such a good idea as it was very icy this morning, and three men already slipped and fell there. So I tell him not to worry I’ll put it on top of the fridge. Then he says he’ll go to bed and I say the same although I plan on going to the lounge room to watch TV. He goes to bed, I turn the lights in the hallway out and quietly walk to the lounge room and as I pass my parents’ bedroom I can hear my mum asking if I’m going to bed and my dad saying he doesn’t know and maybe I’ll go and watch TV. He knew. So I get to the lounge room, close the door, turn the lights on and discover that my mum is lying on one of the couches with a blanket over her. Hmm, how odd, I’ve just heard her in the bedroom. So I wonder whether she might be the ghost of my real mum. Not that the mum in the bedroom isn’t my real mum, but still, in a way she isn’t since she’s dementia stricken and much of her real self is gone. I’m thinking maybe the mum on the sofa is my real pre-dementia mum. So I call out to her but there’s no response. I touch her arm and finally she wakes up. I repeat “mum” but get no response. So I get an idea; what if I take her to the bedroom and she meets my dementia stricken mum. Maybe their shock of seeing the other version of themselves will somehow merge them and the result will be a non-dementia stricken mum. So I ask her to get up and we walk to the bedroom. But the lights are already on and my dad is changing the bed sheets. Maybe mum had an accident. So I realise the mum from the lounge room isn’t a ghost mum but just my ordinary dementia stricken mum. My mum begins to criticise my dad for changing the sheets again. He doesn’t complain, he was so good in those days although it was hard work living with an ill woman. I decide to go back to the lounge room and watch TV. The end, I wake up.
In real life my mum passed away three years ago. For five years we saw her drift into an awful state. My dad isn’t the big strong guy he was then either. He’s ill too now although it’s another nasty disease, the ugly C. Life’s a bitch and then you die. When I woke up my apartment was stuffy and too hot so I opened a window to get fresh air. The phone ran. “Oh bummer”, I thought, “Maybe it’s the people from the Job Centre”. It was my dad. “Hey, they’ve got cheap Ali coffee at Bilka’s!”

...but how will I ever find these wonderful tapes again???

I dreamt I was on a bus and the bus driver suddenly went into the back of the bus to speak to some passengers. I noticed we were about to drive into a ditch and went and stopped the bus. And told the driver off. Then I woke up and went for a glass of water. Once back on the other side I found myself in another vehicle, this time my dad's car and we were just about to go onto the freeway but coming up to it I noticed a petrol station and suggested we go in. The attendant offered us æbleskiver and I went into the back and found a huge rack of ex-rental video tapes. Half of them were old porn tapes but there were some very obscure films as well that I'd never seen before. I began piling them up on the floor. They were 10 kroner each and I had 400 kroner. I didn't want my dad to see the porn tapes so I asked him to go get me a bottle of water from the car. I began piling again. Just before waking up I had tapes for 300 kr. and it had become a problem. The attendant wasn't there, he was probably stuffing æbleskiver in his face, there were too many tapes to carry and I couldn't leave them as there were other customers and paranoid me was worried they'd grab them if I left. I wanted a trolley but couldn't find one. Ohh, the horror. Then I woke up again. Damn dreams!

Funnel me this, Batman

So in my dream last night I’m trying to watch an old western on a new big tv but the picture is blurry so I try and adjust but nothing works. The good thing is that it’s a big screen and I can see the tv removes the black bars on the screen (in the dream it’s a video tape I’m trying to watch, obviously). After a while the tv screen is as big as a cinema screen and covers the entire wall. I get a great idea, why not tune the tv so I can actually watch tv programmes. So I start tuning but now I realise I ought to blow-dry the screen as that’s surely gonna help get rid of the blurry picture. I pull out a very weird blow-dryer with a kind of funnel at the end. I look into the funnel and see old food in there. Bummer, what if my dad sees I haven’t even cleaned it, he’ll think I’m crappy at living on my own. So I start digging old potatoes out of the funnel but suddenly I notice something else is in there: There’s a young caveman standing looking at the wall of the funnel (I’m now inside the funnel!) and then... zapp... he’s no longer standing but sitting on some big rocks that are also in there and next to him is a real Neanderthal man. This is too good to miss so I pull out my camera. “Stay there don’t move” I say and start taking photos of them. Suddenly something from behind grabs my attention and I turn around. The funnel entrance is now gone and there’s an open forest footpath and a naked young woman walks past. She's sporting a Brazilian wax and I’m wondering how I know that as I only see her from the side and behind. And with this bewilderment in my head I wake up. I have... no idea what it means.


My buddy Steve Nyland sent me this scan as a suggestion to what my dream was about. LOL.

Damn dreams!

I hardly never ever remember my dreams. This one I did.

I was at home where I grew up (and where my dad still lives). Three big men where in the lounge room torturing my dad who was tied to a chair. I was eating my lunch at the nearby dinner table. In the dream I thought to myself I'd just keep eating my lunch and then do something later. If I said anything they'd just jump on me as well. Then there was a time jump, they had finished with my dad who was now unconscious in the chair and they were also eating at the same table as I was. They were sitting on the opposite side. After a while they fell asleep. I looked at my dad who, in his unconscious state, had turned his had and I could now see his horribly scarred face. I got out a old-fashioned curved knife. I hesitated, I worried what if one of them woke up before I finished. But then I jumped up on the table and took on the biggest and meanest of the lot who was sitting on the left (from me) and cut his throat - and then went on and ditto'ed the other two. Then another place and time jump. I was going to the movies. There was a staircase downwards and a lot of video tapes, most of them sell-thru tapes, were scattered all over the stairs. I knew I needed to get them all otherwise they'd be lost so I pulled out two big plastic bags and one big see-thru garbage bag and began to collect the tapes. I got them all into the bags but then two people I knew arrived and met me halfway down at the stairs. We spoke for a bit and I put down the plastic bags. At some point I wanted to pick up the bags again but discovered that the garbage bag had gone. I was in shock. Where were my tapes. I thought about how they probably were sell-thru's most of them but there's always the chance of finding that one rare ex-rental tape. I wanted to get my garbage bag back from whatever creep stole it and began to search the building - but to no avail. And then I woke up. I can see how the second part of my dream has to do with my real life... but the first part??? O_O

Click the label underneath to read about previous messed up dreams. o_O

...

There's one point in Anders Østergaard's documentary film TROLLKARLEN about the Swedish jazz musician Jan Johansson in which one of Johansson's friends talks about a dream he had after Jan died; In the dream he had just stepped out of a tube train in the Stockholm underground when he saw his friend at a distance, he followed him and when he finally caught up he asked: "Jan, where have you been? We thought you passed away" to which Jan coyly responded that he'd been away to help set up a music piece in Russia. Then the friend woke up and in the documentary movie you can see how his face changes when he continues "...but then everything was of course back to normal". It's weird how the mind works. A couple of nights ago I dreamt I was talking to some people and one of them turned to me and said: "She is dead" and pointed to a woman. I woke up and thought to myself: "That person didn't die, she doesn't even exist". Then I realised the person who made that comment to me was actually my mum who passed away in real life. We may get further away but it never really gets good.

When your dead neighbour comes to you in your dreams

I had another of those damn dreams that I remember for some reason. I was on my way to work (the employment situation is obviously better in the realm beyond the awaken state, I can barely remember the last time I had a job) but when I got there I discovered the ground in front of the building had gone. If I wanted to get in I would have had to try and climb in via a very narrow footpath. There were workers there and they were using the narrow footpath but I thought "No way!". I simply wasn't gonna risk falling down. So instead I went into the building thru a door at the other end. However, I discovered my work place wasn't there but instead it lead into a big second-hand market. Much better than going to work! So I looked around, and now my Dad was there too. I found an issue of an old Danish horror comic book called "Gru". Then we got into the car to go somewhere. Now there was a third man there as well, Benny. In real life Benny was my aunt's ex-husband from the 1980s. They lived in a house next to ours in the years before I moved away from home. I never liked Benny, he was crude, drank a lot, had prostitutes when he was away for work, farted, and smelled (well, back then I had the notion that he did but I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe it was just my main dislike of him that made me add that unpleasant feature to him subconsciously). But in any case, my aunt left him when he was away for work at some stage. She practically just got up and left (left the door open and all). Benny moved away many years ago and I never saw him again. I heard he died recently. Anyway, there we are in the car; me, my Dad, and Benny who in my dream more resembled the Danish sculpturer Ingvar Cronhammer, just with less beard (I watched a program on Cronhammer a couple of days ago). Outside the car it was a very grey day and the sky resembled something dark grey'ish that you would imagine Lars Von Trier had used in an early film he never finished. I checked out my issue of "Gru". It was worn (and there was a fairly big hole going thru the pages) and in my dream I thought I'd try and buy every duplicate issue I could find, then at some stage I would hopefully find one that was in a really good condition. These magazines came out in 1973-74 but I'm not sure the issue in my dream was a genuine issue or only existed there (the latter probably). I looked out the car window and saw two people just as they were about to walk into a supermarket. In my dream I felt they looked liked losers (i.e. not cool like me!) and I said "Look, those people are being attacked by birds". I think Benny said "Yeah, that's what happens around here". Actually they were just walking into the store, there were no birds and in my dream I probably made that up because I was under the "influence" of the horror comic book. I woke up, it was 2:00 in the morning. I went back to sleep and landed at home where I grew up. In front of the TV set (what a surprise). I was drinking coffee. From a couch at the other end of the lounge room my Mum (who also passed away fairly recently) asked if there was any more coffee in the coffee flask and I said yes. So she got up, came over, poured the last bit of coffee, and said "Do you want more coffee?" to which I said "Yes, please", and then she went back to from where she'd been sitting, got her own coffee flask and poured coffee into my mug! Why didn't she just pour herself coffee from her own flask in the first place? And why did I say yes to having more coffee poured into my already half full mug when I hate that in real life (why would I ruin a perfect mix of coffee and milk by pouring more coffee into it!). Then my Mum began walking towards the door, turned around and said "Aren't you going to bed soon?" I said "no" and that it was only half past 9:00 to which she asked why I wanted to stay up and I said "It's New Years Eve!". So she left and I stayed in front of the TV... and woke up.

Btw, it's kinda funny that I should wake up from sitting in front of the TV in a dream as I usually FALL ASLEEP in front of the telly! Haha.

I re-watched two old documentary films about hard-boiled crime writer James Ellroy the other day and in both films Ellroy said "Dead women rule my world". It seems dead people are hanging around in my dreams too.

When Robert Redford comes to you in your dreams

I woke up and wrote down one of my messed up dreams again. I choose not to regard them as anything but fragments of a mutated insane brain. Otherwise I'd probably believe the back of my mind is trying to tell me I'm gay ["Not that there's anything wrong with being gay", Seinfeld] (the last dream I remembered was about Fred Anderson and now Robert Redford for Christ's sakes!). Damn brain, I thought we had an agreement!

I found myself on a connecting street close to the neighbourhood where I grew up. There was a shopping cart (which later changed into a fridge) half blocking the road so I put it into a big fridge (which changed into a big wooden cupboard). The maintenance guy came by and it was his job to do this but since he hadn't done it I got impatient and moved the trolley. I discovered I had my dick hanging out my pants and didn't want him to see it so I walked away from him slowly towards my little backpack. I got my schlong tugged in, got my backpack, and started walking towards a big hill which is located close to that road. However, in my dream it was much bigger and had a hotel on top. I wanted to go there cos I knew it was owned by my friend Robert Redford. I got to the asphalt padded yard in front of the main entrance. A couple of girls were sitting next to a table a bit of way away and I dragged my backpack, which had now changed into a plastic bag, on the ground to show them I REALLY didn't care. I got in thru the door and went into a lift to go to the top floor. The inside of the lift looked weird, the staff had tried to make it safer by applying odd paddings to it. I got to the top floor and I walked out and the same did a group of other people from the lift. They hadn't been there when the lift went up. There was a party going but being my cool self I didn't want to rush ahead like the dorks in the group. And besides, I wasn't wearing a suit like they were (not that I ever wore a suit) so I waited for a moment. A mid-aged rich woman asked me if I wanted to come around for sex at an agreed time. I said "Yes, write down the time" and gave her a pen. The paper was in my plastic bag which for some reason was now on top of a bookshelf. Being a rich woman she didn't know how to reach for the paper so she looked around for a servant. I reached up, gave her the paper but then I saw my friend Robert Redford. He was sort of keeping to himself and leaning towards a wall. I went over and we talked briefly, he knew I wasn't one of the rest of these people, vultures who were just interested in his fame. The mid-aged woman who wanted to fuck me came over, she had now changed into a pretty young girl and she looked shaggable but when Redford begun to speak to me again I thought "fuck it" (because I'd probably get another chance with her later) and turned my back to her. Then Redford said "Have you done your Cleese?" To which I replied "No, not yet". I knew what he was referring to and at this stage I remembered I'd dreamt about this before. Maybe weeks ago or maybe even months had passed in between but in a previous dream I'd been at this place before where I'd played a hiding game with Robert Redford. A dream in which I'd done John Cleese's famous long-legged "walk" (the one you see in the "Faulty Towers" episode about the Germans where he imitates the Nazi walk). So we started the game again, Redford hid in a small cupboard and I simply went for the lift again. The pretty girl was confused and went to his hiding place, opened the door and asked if he'd seen me. He yelled "Jack, have you done the 'walk'" So I stuck my head out and yelled "No", pressed the button on the wall, the elevator began going down again... and I woke up.

At some stage in the dream I'd heard a loud noise and now I discovered that a pile of video tapes close to my bed had fallen over (and crushed some of the little people who I suspect live on my floor).

When Fred Anderson comes to you in your dreams

I dreamt about Ninja Dixon's Fred Anderson last night! No, it wasn't a gay fantasy as that's not my scene but a real dream. He and some other guy were visiting and staying over. They were sleeping on the floor of my lounge room. Fred was wearing a polo; he wiped his nose on it and looked confused around of what to do. So I said: "Do you want a T-shirt?". Yes, he did. I opened my cupboard which was now sitting in my lounge room (which some of you call living room) instead of my bedroom. But I couldn't find a shirt cos my dad and some guy with a German Alsatian had filled my cupboard with all kinds of stuff. Obviously, none of them live here. I couldn't find the T-shirt so we decided I should sleep in the old summer house that we used to own near the beach. Don't ask me how this was supposed to help Fred get a new T-shirt. During the night at the summer house I was happy to have the dog there in case of burglars. Obviously, the damn dog needed to go for a slash during the night so I got up and discovered that the lounge room was now placed in the kitchen of the house where I grew up! I'm sure it all means I've got severe psychological issues, have no sense of belonging, and ... that I wanna sleep with dogs.

Oh crap! O_O

Oh Karen!