I recently realized that I’m living a repressed, empty life of debauchery, gluttony and uncontrollable bellybutton lint. As such, I’ve abandoned all my “intellectual” pursuits in order to immerse myself in the new age. No more philosophy. Plato is dead to me. Science holds no more charm. You can no longer lead me astray with pornography like “The Economist.” Nietzsche once said “God is dead and we have killed him.” I say “Nietzsche is dead and new age spirituality has killed him.” Consider my life officially devoted to energy crystals, the sacred feminine and The Gospel According to Alex Jones.
I have so succeeded in freeing myself from the tyranny of reason because, last night, I had a normal dream. This is not normal for me. I usually collapse into a heap around midnight, drool into the pillow and cuddle whatever or whoever is closest by. Sometimes, I wake up with strange impressions or moods or “false facts” that last a couple hours. I once spent thirty minutes trying to figure out how I’d explain my expulsion from Harvard University to my family, for example, before I remembered that I’ve never been within a thousand miles of Massachusetts. What I don’t typically get is a dream with visual images I can recall upon waking.
Last night was an exception. My dream began with me driving my car, the freshly cleaned and soon to be awesome race car “Rocinante.” I flipped open the unlocked and unsecured armrest compartment where I normally keep spare neck ties, loose change and the sorts of vital financial documents I’d frankly rather not think about. Inside, I found an unfamiliar, worn leather wallet. When I flipped it open to check the driver’s license, I discovered it belonged to my good friend JM, who I’ve known since high school.
Because I’m basically a saint, I immediately felt the overpowering desire to return this wallet to JM. I remember praising myself, in dream, for not even thinking about plundering it for cash, which is more evidence of my saintliness. I also praised myself for not even considering holding it upside down and dancing while all the contents fell out. (The important point here is that I not only have amazing impulse control in my dreams, but I also have really fucking weird impulses.)
Suddenly and seemlessly I transported to my bedroom. I rose planning to walk to JM’s house, a mere 10,000 miles away from my South Korean apartment. However, before I took even one step, Michael Bolton appeared. Sporting a fabulous permed mullet and crooning softly about how a man loves a woman, his buttery vocal virtuosity froze me in place. He explained that he’d always wanted to try singing soprano and gave me a tour de force – by which I mean borderline painful – demonstration of his opera chops. Bolton then looks at me, still paralyzed and in awe, and winks. “I’ll make sure he gets the wallet,” Michael Bolton says as he plucks JM’s wallet from my frozen fingers. I don’t believe him but feel oddly nonplussed. I then wake and spend a couple minutes being mad at Michael Bolton before the reality testing part of my brain boots up.
* On a possibly related note, I haven’t been sleeping much lately.
This dream clearly symbolizes the deepest secrets of my being. In order to better understand the supercharged waveforms and osmosis of intuition, I have decided to interpret my dream with the help of the New Age Bullshit Generator, a couple of online dream dictionaries and my newfound freedom from rational thought. Join me, then, on this journey into infinite purpose that transcends understanding.
First, I need to to explain the car stuff. I was stepping on the brakes when I noticed JM’s wallet. That means –
“To dream that you are applying your brakes signifies that you should slow down in your business and/or personal affairs. You have been living on the fast lane and you need to take it easy.”
I can couple that with wallet, a symbol for –
“To see your wallet in your dream symbolizes your self identity or financial security.”
I choose to synthesize this matrix of becoming thusly – I need to slow down in life because I’ve completely taken over JM’s identity and financial security. My quest to become JM leads to the next stage of the analysis – my desire to go abroad and return JM’s identity to him.
“To dream of being or going abroad indicates unbalance and chaos in your current situation … the dream may suggest that you need to expand your horizons or experience a new sense of spirituality.”
I think this clearly connects with Michael Bolton and the symbol of a bedroom.
“No matter what, when you dream of the bedroom, you are dreaming of sex. If you are unsure whether you want to have sex maybe just have sex with them anyway and see if that clears your mind of thoughts of the bedroom.”
This puts me in quite the pickle. My journey into the quantum awakening hasn’t really stirred any latent homosexual feelings. In order to verify my heterosexuality I consulted with my girlfriend who was “at least 70% sure you aren’t gay.” The symbol of opera singing pops up here as well, indisputably proving that I am “questing after the grander things in life,” and what could be grander than seducing Michael Bolton?
Since I must flower if I am to believe, what does this all mean? Clearly I am attempting to usurp JM’s identity, what with his wife and kids. This is causing instability, because I should really be putting the moves on Michael Bolton. However, with the evidence that I’m not actually gay, this can mean only one thing.
MICHAEL BOLTON TRANSCENDS GENDER!
For less bullshitty dream analysis I sincerely do recommend The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud and Dreams, by C.G. Jung.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider buying the author’s novel.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Blackguard-Ben-Garrido/dp/1939051746
For customers living in East Asia.
HEEEE-larious!
BTW, since you’re in Korea, if you ever dream about crap, that means you’re about to get rich. The more crap, the better. Animal crap smeared all over the walls? Go buy a lottery ticket.
Thanks!
Lucky me, this bout of the stomach flu will definitely usher in my fabulously successful gambling career!
I just wanted to say I read your novel and enjoyed it immensely. Quite a page turner! Just curious…did you get any inspiration from the FLDS? I found certain parallels there…
I’d actually never heard of them before. Maybe subconsciously. 🙂
I’m glad you liked the book. That always feels good. Did you find anything philosophically interesting?
If you did, I have a potentially interesting idea …
To be honest, I couldn’t quite figure out the Nietzsche aspect of the Enclavian society. I didn’t see much there that resembled Nietzsche, but as I understood it, that was intended.
I saw the novel a conversation on greatness-power vs. happiness (and this in an either/or sense, which I find mostly correct). Happiness seemed to be equated with a quiet domesticity, and a loving relationship; greatness with trouble and danger. (I thought it was a good turning point when the protagonist changes from money-seeking to fame-seeking.)
The ending I saw as somewhat ambiguous. I saw the missed opportunity for happiness, and this seemed tragic. The ending seemed to come down on the side of happiness since the protagonist’s glory sort of peters out and we’re left to wonder what might have been in store for him if he had chosen to a quiet domestic life instead.
What’s your idea? I’m all ears…
Would you like to make this dialogue into a co-authored blog post?
Sure! What shall we do? Where do we begin?
Let’s discuss this on email. I’m at blackguard5858 gmail account.
Very excited!
Sending email…