Saturday, April 18, 2009

LAST NIGHT I HAD A DREAM


Last night I had a dream.  In the dream heavy winds ushered in menacing storm clouds.



Some one said the weather was caused by a gigantic near-Earth asteroid. I looked up and there it was, immense in the sky.



It didn't take long for the clouds (above) to cover everything.



The clouds formed a roof, trapping every one beneath.



Then the rain (above) started. 



It was an ugly, grey rain, the kind that saps your energy and makes it impossible to think. I ran into a restaurant to get away from it.



Inside I was beset by visions where I could see through the eyes of other people. 



For a moment I was a boxer who'd just been hit.



Then I was a sailor looking over the railing at a rough and surging sea.



Miraculously a break in the clouds appeared and the rain stopped.



Overjoyed, I raced out the back door where I found a steep set of stairs. Something felt wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  A bicyclist raced by. I ran down the steps to flag him down.



Out on the street (above) everything was dry and silent. No sign of the bicycle man. No movement of any kind. It was like a frozen frame in a piece of film, only it was real.



I wandered into an apartment building (above). One of the doors was open, and I stepped inside. A man was there but he refused to talk or even look in my direction. 



In a corner a couple made passionate love. Their heavy breathing and my own footsteps were the only sounds I could hear.  



I turned to leave and found a woman sitting on a chair by the door. She just stared at me, as if she expected me to do something.



Somehow I knew that if I touched the woman something horrible would happen. I ran out onto the street but nothing looked familiar...

...and that's when I woke up.

Or it would have been if I had actually dreamed this dream. I have to admit that I made it up. One of these days I'll put up a real dream if I can remember to write it down. 

BTW: some of the photos here are from a terrific blog called "If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats." 


12 comments:

Brubaker said...

Well, that would be a good cartoon to animate.

I dreamt that I was a raccoon once.

lastangelman said...

A touch of The Lathe of Heaven, Salvador Dali & Alfred Hitchcock and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. A gripping and amusing photo story. I'm betting you could assemble something that would equal or top La Jetée.

Unknown said...

spiders

Craig said...

I loved your imagery and accompanying story. Very dreamular.
We just posted a sequence that traffics in the same territory. It's called "VLAD'S INTERVIEW"
flexitoon.blogspot.com

ardy said...

Where do you get all these great pictures?

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Ardee: Lots of places: Google Images searches for Steichen, Veronica Lake, and others, and a terrific blog called something like "If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copyists."

Last: Thanks for the tip about La Jetee. I'd never heard of it before.

About La Guinn, do you know the name of the short story she wrote about the telephone poles who enlarged and dwindled in size to fool motorists into thinking they were traveling someplace?

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Craig: Wow! Interesting video! What an unusual theme to tackle with puppets!

Bitter Animator said...

I was actually planning on posting about dreams this week. Have you seen Waking Life? I only remember one part of that whole movie and it's because, when it happened and was noted in the narration, I instantly recognised it. A feature of my dreams since I was a child.

Light swtiches don't work.

For whatever reason, in all my dreams, light switches don't work. The light is either on or off and I can't affect a change there one way or another.

And here's this movie showing me that same thing. A moment where the character knows he is dreaming because the light switch doesn't work. Can it be that light switches don't work in anyones dreams? That can't be right, can it? Why would that be? Why would it even be common enough to mention in that movie?

Clarity said...

I was thinking La Jetee too. I love those 60's French films with a running commentary. More of the same Eddie, please.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-HZJBaM9hI

Ricardo Cantoral said...

I had a dream were a dog bit off my nipple.

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Anon: Haw! Funny music! It almost sounds like something you'd hear in a video game!

Bitter: I have a book of dream interpretation and the only mention of a light switch said that the inability to turn one on is a forboding of something unpleasant in the real world.