2/26/2024 –
You are what you eat. I went to bed playing video games and spent the night inside of an odd video game-esque environment. The best way I could describe this is that it’s a shooter type action game inside this metallic maze type environment and these thin board length pieces of metal keep semi-materializing into the world, which influences the strategy of the game.
So you’d see this odd piece of vibrating metal phasing into the world and that’d influence your approach. I wish I could remember much more of the details but that’s honestly the best I could put it into words. I do get the vibe though and the lesson from all this immersion in this game universe is that you have to react. You have to wait to see where these vibrating metal pieces from alternate worlds are going to appear before you can determine your plan of attack. You have preformulated strategies but you’ve got to adjust them on the fly based on where these mysterious planks appear.
There’s a brief break from this when I once again visit the mysterious southern city. Of all the recurring dream locales in my arsenal, this is the most baffling as I’ve legit never been to the south. What this small city is varies and here it’s Memphis. I’m visiting Memphis with a friend and it seems like we’re there on some sort of business.
Once we arrive there’s like the one main drag where all the cool shit is (like High Street in Columbus I suppose) and we briefly hit up this street because we figure it’s the main thing to see. I briefly find myself thinking about how without CD shopping I don’t even have much use for the cool hip districts anymore and we’re not there long. Why? Because we apparently came to this city just to jump back into the video game world, which we do.
Outside of that, there’s a vision where my wife is telling me that she has to throw away this breakfast food she bought because it’s gone bad. I look and it’s this chocolate flavored variety of Shredded Wheat. The OG big piece Shredded Wheat too, not the bite sized version. I am incredibly confused as to how this could have gone bad so quickly and also kind of disappointed because it looks pretty tasty. I’m considering attempting to eat it after she leaves because she hasn’t thrown it away yet.
Then another vision of me looking at a CD from a long dead band I was in and completely forgetting that we did include photos of the band members in the jacket. In mine, I’m sleeping lying on my back with my sunglasses on. Kind of a cool pic. Then on the insert there’s another live photo of me jumping around and acting crazy. I’m only mildly embarrassed by this but my back is turned away from the audience for some reason. Honestly, this is all a commentary on how I rarely use my own pictures to promote my art. To this day there never has been a picture of me in album art anywhere, although we did take some band photos for a couple of my projects. Def something I need to work on I suppose.
2/27/2024 –
I’m playing a similar version of the shooting game I was playing the night before except this time it’s more of a human environment. In fact, the only thing I really remember is pulling out of this experience with a older slightly plump gray haired Asian man in front of me wearing futuristic looking almost Star Wars stormtrooper style purple armor. Was he a friend of foe? No idea.
Then some vignettes:
Vignette #1:
My wife and I are going to go out drinking and this small tower building pops into my minds eye. It’s a thin, square, I’d say 5 to 10 story tower type building and I’m guessing the bar is on the top floor. An incredibly impractical design honestly.
Once I’ve seen this, a good looking dude with gray hair parted cleanly on the left chimes in. He’s a bartender there and the last time he went out drinking at his own establishment, he blacked out completely and nearly died. I ask him how that all happened and he replied:
“A night out with the bros man.”
And I’m all:
“Yeah, going out drinking with the bros.”
I get it. Also, the last time I drank too much involved me hanging with a friend I hadn’t seen in way too long. Nowhere near blackout level drinking though. Not even close but it was a tad irresponsible.
Vignette #2:
I’m creating an oil painting of what looks like a German Shorthair or some similar breed. It’s posing with its master who is mostly whited out and sort of peripheral while the dog is fully colored in delicious brown hues. As I’m finishing the thing up, I realize that I’ve accidentally made the dog look super morose. Not what I was intending at all but I think it’s kind of genius. I’m legitimately surprised that I’ve made something so profound by complete happenstance and I want to show it to someone. I show it to one unidentified person and they agree that’s it’s unintentionally great, then I show it to the same good looking gray haired dude from the prior vision.
“It’s so goddamn sad”
He tells me and I see it through his perspective now. Through his eyes, the whited out human in the painting is him and there are 2 completely different dogs. I know there’s a history there that makes the painting particularly painful for him. A voice in my head now informs me:
“Never write or talk about things you don’t understand.”
Fair point. Oddly, this is a response to something I’d been contemplating earlier that day, which is that I legitimately don’t remember the death of my first childhood dog, which was a German Shorthair. I know the dog was old and it passed away but it obviously wasn’t very traumatic or sad for me. I might have been out of town visiting my grandparents when it happened honestly. Zero recall on that front whatsoever.
Vignette #3:
I’m at a bar sitting next to Norm from Cheers. In this scenario, I’m somehow aware that one of their friends (it seems like Cliff) has either died or nearly died from a massive heart attack. He pulls up a beer stein and shows how it’s super corroded with gunk.
“That’s what was in his heart.”
He states and he’s sighing in disbelief. He knows his alcohol fueled lifestyle is also killing him but will he stop? He’s at the bar isn’t he?
This is the second vision about heavy drinking on the same night and honestly, I felt like shit because of my Hashimoto’s disease yesterday and yet, this exact condition is very well the only reason I didn’t turn into a total drunk. I was forced to stop essentially. Fascinating. Always look in the bright side of life.
Vignette #4:
I’ve woken up early in the morning and am hanging out with 4 other people in the townhouse of my kitchen. We’re all getting ready for our respective days when I realize something. Wait a minute, I was supposed to be going to philosophy class this morning but I don’t have to go to that. I don’t have to go to any of these classes. I’m immediately relieved but at the same time, the other people in the kitchen all have things to do with their days and I don’t really. What am I going to do with myself today? Why did I even get out of bed so early?
2/28/2024 –
While pulling out a dream I remember that there’s some unknown dude chatting with these 3 sports journalists. What he’s telling them is that the assignment of covering sports is inherently a joke really, so it’s so refreshing that these 3 take it seriously. I then see these odd avatars of these sports journalists going about their business. They do take it seriously apparently. Ok then.
Now I’m being called into this situation where a young woman is trying to learn a particular piece of music on the piano but it’s just not working. She’s being taught by this good looking bald black guy, who seems to have a lot of credentials with this sort of thing, but she’s just not mastering the piece as expected. She’s just genuinely struggling with it for whatever reason. So I am summoned and I immediately change the approach. Focus on the rhythm, I’m telling her. I set a simple beat and I’m basically like:
“Just keep playing the triplets to that beat.”
This seems to help her understand the piece she’s trying to master. She just needed to focus on the rhythm. I’d say this doesn’t make sense but as a person who hated the music I was forced to learn as a kid I suppose I get it. It made more sense when it seemed closer to music she actually likes.
Now the classic thing where my wife and I have gone out partying but somehow end up in our old basement apartment. It’s now the morning, my wife has gone, and I’m left to pack up and head back to our actual place. I have the dogs too and as I’m packing up everything I hear our landlord coming down the stairs. Fuck. I’m not supposed to be here. Except our landlord shows up and she doesn’t really care. Sure. Why not?
Comments