A VARIENT ON THE FLYING DREAM

PATIENT: "Are you sure you want hear about this dream? It's kinda silly, and it doesn't make sense. I don't want to waste your time."

PSYCHIATRIST: "You're not wasting my time. Go ahead."

PATIENT: "Okay...here it is, but remember, you asked for it.

Okay, well, it was late afternoon in a city I'd never been in before. I had time to kill, so I figured I'd take a walk around...sort of get a feel for the place."

PATIENT: "People were just getting out of work. They poured out of the buildings and lined up at bus stops and turnstiles. Everybody was jostling everybody."

PATIENT: "I felt like I was getting in the way, so I looked for smaller streets to explore. I took shortcuts through alley ways."

PATIENT: "I knew enough about big cities to avoid the most dangerous looking places..."

PATIENT: "...but even normal streets struck me as a little odd. As it got darker and I got farther and farther into the labyrinth, I'd see fewer people. Oh, they were there, but I'd no sooner catch a glimpse of them than they'd turn a corner or walk into a door." 

PSYCHIATRIST: "So they were trying to avoid you?"

PATIENT: "Maybe, or maybe I was just out of sync with them."

PATIENT: "It was the same way with buses and subway cars. I'd arrive just when they were pulling out." 

PATIENT: "The whole time I had the feeling that I was being watched."

PATIENT: "But who'd want to watch me? I didn't even know these people."

PATIENT: "Later on I got tired of walking. Not only that, but I was hopelessly lost."

PATIENT: "That's when I stumbled on an old hotel with a restaurant on the bottom floor."

PATIENT: "There were people there, but they didn't think much of me. I could feel the hostility."

PATIENT: "But why, I kept thinking. What did I do to them?"

PATIENT: "I think they wanted to tear me apart, but were under some restraint that I didn't understand."

PATIENT: "It was all too much. In an effort to block it out, I buried my head in my hands."

PATIENT: "The instant I closed my eyes I heard a loud airplane engine and I flashed on a vivid image of an airplane flying over some kind of tundra. Don't ask me how, but somehow I knew that the plane was in trouble. It was out of gas and would have to make a landing in a field of trees." 

PATIENT: "I could also hear the ticking clock on the restaurant wall."

PATIENT: "The plane circled around once then came in low. The engines sputtered and stopped."

PATIENT: "It glided over tall pine trees. It was suicide to land in a place like this, but the pilot had no choice."

PATIENT: "As if things weren't bad enough, the landing gear got stuck halfway down. I could see the pine trees rushing up. I could hear screams. I had the sickening feeling that the fate of this plane would determine my own fate."

PSYCHIATRIST: "What happened?"

PATIENT: "What do you think happened? It was horrible."

PATIENT: "I looked up to see what was happening in the restaurant and I was amazed to see that everyone was positively jovial. It's as if they were relieved of a burden of some sort. They hadn't changed what they thought about me, though. I could see that."

PATIENT: "They surrounded me like it was a game they were playing, and I tried to reason with them. 'Look, I don't want to bother you, I just want to get back to the center of town. Does anybody here know where I can get a trolley?' "

PATIENT: "A crowd had gathered outside. "He wants a trolley! Get him a trolley!' they shouted.

PATIENT: "A flaming trolley was brought up."

PSYCHIATRIST: "Wait a minute! Hold the story there! Your hour's up and I have other patients."

PATIENT: "Huh? B-but what about my dream?"

PSYCHIATRIST: "It was a fine dream! We'll talk about it next time."

PATIENT: "But...but..."

*****************************************

Aaaaaargh! If the deadline wasn't hard upon me, I'd have shelved this story because it's riddled with flaws. I started with two completely unrelated ideas that I thought I could fuse: one about someone who gets lost, and another about a crashing airplane. Geez, what was I thinking? Any ideas for how I could have saved this?

MY FLYING DREAMS

This is about a recurring dream that I used to have when I was a kid.

It was always about flying. I was obsessed with it. Maybe it's because I learned to walk on one of those bouncy toddler thingies (above) that were all the rage back then.

None of the other kids could fly but I was certain that I would figure it out. When I got a little older I realized that I was wasting my time. People couldn't fly because they're just not built for it. What we are built for is jumping, and if you jump high enough it's just like flying....so I began to dream about jumping.

Finally I managed to make it work, at least in dreams. In dreams I could jump as high as the rooftops.

In my best dream of all, I jumped all the way downtown, into the big city. It was great!

Most people (above) weren't even aware that I was overhead.

Admiring girls (above) waved to me from open windows.

Occasionally (above) I'd stop to rest on a rooftop or flagpole. 

In this dream I figured I'd head out to the seashore to get a slice of pizza. 

I landed on the roof of a beach shack but the lady that lived there got mad and chased me away. 

Wanting to get away from there fast, I did a big running jump into the air way over the sea. It was my biggest leap ever. About half a mile out I came down on a tiny platform (above) on a long pole sticking out of the water.

I carefully sat down, and took in the immensity of my surroundings. 

Overhead the clouds put on a show for me. I saw what looked like a cat chasing a school bus, and a giant profile of Lincoln.

It was spectacular, but I began to feel lonely. I had no one to share it with. 

  

I must have been looking at the clouds for a long time because when I looked at the sea (above) again it was a lot rougher than before. I became aware of the menace posed by the unimaginable volume of the sea water.

Cold winds blew, and it began to rain. The pole swayed back and forth, and I had trouble holding on. A nearby boat was nearly swamped. I knew if I fell into the water there would be no rescue. 

As if things weren't bad enough, night was coming. Somehow I knew that attempting to leap back to land wouldn't work. I had to face the fact that I'd probably never survive the night. 

It all seemed so crazy and pointless.  What meaning does my life have if it can be snuffed out so easily? And why do I have to die out here, where nobody can even see it? All the pain of freezing and drowning...WHY? What purpose does it serve?

This is where I'd always wake up.

NIGHTMARES

I thought I'd put up a few examples of surreal cinematic nightmare sequences.

The first (above) is from a film called "Bewitched," which according to Thomas in a comment, was directed by Arch Oboler (Thomas also recommends Oboler's other film, "The Twonky"). The clip looks like something Borzage would have made. Borzage is a favorite director of David Cairn who runs one of the most interesting cinema sites on the net, a blog called "Shadowplay." That's where I got this video.

The end sequence of "Stranger on the Third Floor" makes such an indelible impression that it's easy to forget the surreal second-best sequence (above) that's in the middle of the film. For those who've forgotten, here it is.

This (above) is a trailer for the re-release of Hitchcock's "Vertigo." Not all the shots are from the film's nightmare, but this cut still succeeds in being nightmarish.

More of "Vertigo;" this time, the main titles. Bernard Herrmann's film scores are some of the best classical music written in the 20th Century, but he's seldom on concert programs. Is that the fault of the concert halls or of lawyers who make it hard to get the rights? I tried to buy sheet music for piano transcriptions of his work and couldn't find any, even on the net.

Thanks to Jerk for this clip from "Spellbound."

Thanks to Kurdt for Disney's "Pink Elephants."

And thanks to Anonymous for the "Wild Strawberries" video (above).

Have I missed any good nightmares? Any suggestions?

MY CREEPIEST POST EVER!

Get ready for a really creepy set of pictures. These are similar to the pictures I gathered twenty years ago when I was deeply depressed because I couldn't find work. I didn't really believe in luck, but somehow I got it into my mind that my luck had turned bad, that I was a cork on the waves of fate, that I was drowning with no rock to grab hold of. It's not a pleasant memory. Maybe I was flirting with a nervous breakdown and didn't know it.



Anyway, for a few miserable days I found solace in gathering together pictures on the theme of luck, and luck gone bad. I threw in a few disaster pictures too. I had the crazy idea that by hanging them on my bedroom wall, I'd derive some kind of wisdom from them. Fortunately I had the sense to realize that doing that would spook my family, so the walls were spared.




Actually the idea might not have been as crazy as it sounds. I've frequently been jolted out of depression by pushing whatever downer ideas I had to such an extreme that they seemed outrageous and even funny.






Images like these (above) from Hitchcock's "Spellbound" fit into that category. They're serious and scary, but somehow funny at the same time.












At first I confined myself to images of luck, good and bad, then I branched out to weirder stuff.



I've never been interested in tarot cards, but in my addled state I began to wonder if there was something about them I should investigate.



Like so many people before me, I marveled at the simple directness of the "death" card. Kelly says death might only mean the end of something, and might be a positive sign, but in my ignorance I interpreted it as literal death. No, I wasn't suicidal. When you're a family guy that avenue is closed.



I thumbed through Dore's depictions of Dante's "Inferno."



The idea of seemingly bottomless pits leading to a netherworld seems appealing when you're depressed.



I remembered Poe's story about a maelstrom which began with a description of a black sea hidden away from the world.



A storm at sea is the ultimate metaphor for turbulent thoughts.



Here's an oceanic vortex. Adventure stories I read when I was a kid frequently mentioned vortices and I got the idea that they were a frequent occurrence. "Moby Dick" contained a frightening description of one.




Anyway, you might be curious to know how I got out of this depression. Well one day, after months of shopping my portfolio all around town and being turned down, I actually succeeded in getting work. The moment I shook hands with my new employer every one of those weird thoughts flew out of my head, and never really returned. It's amazing how work can improve your mental health, almost overnight.
.



Years later, I read Knut Hamsun's novel "Hunger," which may be the ultimate story about going nuts from lack of work. I won't reveal the unforgettable ending, but I can recommend the story to people who feel they're at the end of their tether.



I hope I didn't depress anybody with this stuff. It had a happy ending after all.