Thursday, October 26, 2006

The vivid unreality

There was a time when I had extremely vivid dreams on a regular basis. And when I say vivid I mean sometimes I wasn't sure if I had merely dreamt things or if they had actually happened . . . which is frankly unnerving. It's been a while since I've had such a vivid dream but last night's was a doozy. Not that it was elaborate, just so realistic that I was really confused when I woke up this morning. In the dream I was with Sarah and Carolyn and we were riding in a steam engine locomotive with a chef (in full chef garb) and some guy dressed up as Abraham Lincoln (minus the beard). Now, this wasn't just any ol' locomotive, we were in a train carriage made out of a hot-air-balloon basket. And even though everyone else was nicely dressed I was wearing my pajamas . . . but not the pajamas that I was actually wearing as I slept, if that makes sense. Anyway, the locomotive was traveling across plains of tall amber colored grass and it looked so beautiful, then we suddenly crossed a large river and the water was glittering in the sunlight and I was breathless from the perfection of it all. At which point we plunged, locomotive and all, into a futuristic tourist village enclosed in a giant glass arcade with too cute to be real antique storefronts. That's when I woke up . . . although I swear I saw a giant Christmas tree out of the corner of my eye before I woke up, and it wasn't anywhere near Christmas time.

Sometimes I wish we had more control over what we dreamed about . . . be with people that we miss or see places that we have yet to go to or return to places we've enjoyed. But the completely random nature of dreams is what makes them so amusing in the first place, so perhaps having such control over them would render them pointless, just another daydream. Either way, when dreams can be so sweet it's hard not to wish that we could stay in that unreality rather than to open our eyes to the reality that is our lives.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dude Jen, I was in your dream. Excpet i didn'y realise he was a Chef. I thought he was the Karate Kid. Haha, i guess it makes just a little more sense now.

jen said...

Irfan, don't you wish you were in my dream? It was after all quite exciting. Actually I know exactly who the chef and Abe were but didn't think it was worth mentioning at the time. However, for the sake of clarity I will now, the chef was Timothy Busfield of West Wing and now of Studio 60, and Abe Lincoln was Stephen Fry of . . . well of many British films, notably Wilde. Maybe next time you'll have a starring role :)

Sarah said...

I am very happy with my starring role in your dream, though a little bit confused as to what it might mean...hmm. I miss you Jen.

jen said...

I miss you too buddy :)