Category: Dream Theatre

This one isn’t quite as vivid as usual, as when I woke up, I tried to push it from my mind and not think about it instead of dwelling on it, but it lingered with me the rest of the day and night and so I felt it deserved to be chronicled here.

This dream started with me hanging out with a childhood friend, David Presley (IRL, he friended me on FB for a while but later unfriended me so we haven’t really been in contact since my teens). We were at a bar or a party somewhere and he said he had a surprise for me. Then, there was my ex. She had a fresh new short haircut, dyed red and looked beautiful, fit, and happy in a casual, stretchy black dress. She had come to reconnect with me and catch up.

Then the scene changed. I think we were at her house now. Her husband may have been present or maybe just somewhere else in the house (or maybe not present at all, I can’t remember exactly). It was a big, wonderful house. Very modern, with lots of glass and a view of the city. She was sitting in the corner of a room with a harp. She had learned to play in the years since we knew each other and wanted to play something for me. She was wearing some kind of cardigan, or overshirt which she wanted to remove now before she started playing, and in pulling it off over her head, it got a little stuck and comically struggled with it. In this moment I laughed and smiled because something about it was just so charmingly and endearingly “her.” It somehow just nostalgically reminded me of some aspect I had loved about her.

When she finally started playing and singing her song, I realized it was a kind of summary of her life in the years we hadn’t been in contact. A musical “catch up.” It was just a simple, sweet moment, and I was so happy to once again be in contact with my friend, to have her in my life even we weren’t together as I felt it should have been.

Then I woke up. It was 4:30am and there was a hollow pang in my chest realizing it was all a dream. That we were still completely removed from each other’s lives as if we had never known each other. I tried to shake it off and go back to sleep, the latter part of which at least I was a success. Throughout the rest of my day though it poked at my mind and wanted to be chronicled here, and so here it now lives. It was a nice, warm reunion though, even if only in dreams.

Woke up from exhausting cliché theatre dreams.

In this one I was starring in yet another production of Cyrano (my 3rd, and my 2nd go as the main antagonist, De Guiche). Clare Costello was Roxane. This was pretty much my typical theatre stress dream.I had just come off from a scene as pirate (there aren’t actually pirates in Cyrano, but the Gascony cadets are similar) and had to change to come back on as De Guiche for a scene with Roxane. I couldn’t find my costume pieces so I decided to check the other end of the theater but the only way to get there without the audience seeing me was to go outside, run around the side and then enter this side door that led to a little nook for a Stage Manager or something. When you opened the door, there was a very tall chair right at your level which allowed whoever was sitting there to view the stage through a high window. The floor was a good 10′ or so below. I managed to make my down safely but realized there was nowhere I could go from here without being seen by the audience.

I climbed my way back up avoiding a roach on the bottom of the door frame and ran back, around to the backstage area. Luckily I realized that I had more time than I thought but I had mostly wasted it with my trip around the theater. While frantically searching for anything that might work for a costume, I realized that the next few scenes felt very unfamiliar. It was closing night and I suddenly wondered if we had accidentally skipped these scenes the previous 2 nights. I asked Clare if we had done these scenes the last two nights and she wasn’t sure but also said she wouldn’t mind if we hadn’t or skipped them again because that was less to worry about, then she went on stage for a scene with and older man. I really hoped everything would just come to me once we started the scenes because they were my favorite scenes of the show, and I was also bummed that I most definitely wouldn’t have the right costume but, if I was lucky, something thrown together that would work and didn’t look like a pirate.

I started looking for a shirt that would work thinking that it would be easier and quicker if I didn’t change pants and that these pants could probably work. Someone told me to go check this deeper storage area where some costumers had been putting away stocks of stored unused costumes, but that area was already mostly cleaned out and bore no fruit. Back in the main area some costumers were hanging up some new bulk costumes they had ordered. On stage, Clare’s elderly scene partner was totally forgetting his lines and Clare was trying to help by whispering them to him but since everyone was mic’d up those whispers were loud and obvious. The man eventually laughed and apologized to the audience.

At that point someone decided that since the founders of Theatresports were in attendance, it would be good to maybe take a break and do some comedic improv games. They started calling some of the cast out to play and they called my name. I was standing in a shirt and underwear at the time so I shouted “I’m putting pants on” which got a laugh from the audience. I found a pair of pants I thought would work and I set them down so I could change take my shirt off as well to change. When I then reached for the pants again, I couldn’t find them. I was baffled, I literally had just set them down. There were boxes of new pants arranged by sizes that the costumers were hanging up though so maybe they had just grabbed mine to hang up thinking they were just laying around. Regardless, I couldn’t find them. I saw another few piles of pants of the right size but they were tux pants and not nearly right for the show.

Someone ducked backstage to once again ask if I would come out and play in the improv game break, and I said I was trying but couldn’t just come out in my underwear and was trying to find clothes to get dressed. They acknowledged me and went back to start some games with those already there.
At this point, I woke up exhausted.

In the first part of this dream, I dreamt I was going to visit my ex-girlfriend (from like 25 years ago), Raegan. I parked in the parking garage and entered her building which for some reason I felt like was a dorm, even though I don’t think she was in school and it was also like a big hotel/apartment building/event center/mall. Something was going on there because there was a lot of people and activity which slowed my arrival significantly to the point where I noticed I was 30 minutes late, and felt really bad about it so I called her to let know what was going on and that I wasn’t just some kind of jerk who didn’t care about being and that I valued her time and was really excited to see her. I think there was definitely a feeling of possible rekindled romance on the horizon.

I was talking to this girl I was in love with. In the dream I don’t think she was actually anyone from real life, but at the same time my subconscious knew she represented a person or maybe two people from my past. We were school mates, I’m not sure what grade, but either High School or college.

She was informing me that she was going away. Moving or something maybe. I realized that she meant immediately and wouldn’t even finish out the school year. In fact, I realized this conversation was the last we would ever have. Goodbye forever. Somehow I knew I would never see her again. I don’t remember if we were dating or if I was just in love with her but I know it was a warm and friendly conversation though I was dying inside. After she was gone, I was empty and I drove around in a van crying my eyes out, listening to music, and knowing that I had just seen and spoken to her for the last time.

Then I woke up and tried to shake that heaviness off.

In this dream I was visiting Alie Ward, wonderful human and host of the Ologies podcast (one of my absolute favorites) among her many jobs, as well as her husband, Jarrett Sleeper. I think Jarrett was convalescing from some illness or injury (as is true in real life at the moment) so I hadn’t really seen him much. It was the end of my visit and Alie and I both had some last minute errands to run before I left.

For some reason I assumed she was taking Jarrett’s car (a small blue two-door like a Kia or similar make) and I decided to take Alie’s car, which was a big, old, 70’s clunker, like a Buick or something. After I had left I suddenly realized I hadn’t asked her if I could borrow it and felt really self-conscious about it. Maybe I could get back before her and she’d never know it was gone. Hopefully I wasn’t wrong about her taking Jarrett’s car.

I wanted to go to a shop not far from their home, which should have been a simple trip. I had to go down, take a right, then presumably just take another right to get there but somehow the neighborhood ended up being more complicated than that and I had a hard time finding it. I did eventually make my way there. It was a cool, kitschy two-story shop in a small “Little China” type district. As I browsed, there was this teenage boy who was approaching random customers and asking them weird nonsensical questions in an obvious attempt to be entertaining and humorous. I don’t remember what he asked me but it was meaningless fluff something along the lines of “Yeah, do it. Right?” as he nodded with a knowing smile. “Absolutely, do it,” I agreed, humoring his little game.

I got whatever it was I needed, and jumped back in Alie’s clunker to head back to their place. I remember being surprised that this was her car. I made it back down to the end of the street where I had previously turned right and had not seen the house. I went back the other way and somehow missed it again. One more time back and I still hadn’t seen it, so I parked and decided to walk back for closer investigation. Walking up and down that street, I finally saw it and remembered that it was a very small, subtle wooden door in the wall of a busy thoroughfare in that Little China district that was not very obviously a residence and was also set about 6 inches off the ground, and there was a giant gold Chinese symbol of some kind on the wall. Now I needed to go retrieve the car to bring it back.

I tried to walk back to the car but suddenly now the street wasn’t really a street any more and my path back was obstructed in many ways by tables, objects, a small stylized red Chinese pedestrian gate with, etc. I was baffled as I knew I had just driven this way moments before. Then I woke up and tried to shake this frustrating and slightly anxious experience out of my head. Totally worth it to visit Alie and Jarrett though.

Last night I dreamed that I was sleeping on my friend Chris Thompson’s couch. The couch was directly across from the TV, and as per real life, I was sleeping in super late. Chris had been up for a while and was sitting in a chair off to the side and playing a video game on the TV. As I eventually started to get up after noon, I sensed he was a bit irritated by my sleeping in. He asked what I’d been doing and I tried to play it off, “Some reading, some trigonometry,” as if I hadn’t just been sleeping the whole time. Then I realized that playing video games from the side chair was not a great angle and said “Oh if you wanted to sit on the couch to play, you should have just told me! I would have moved!” and went to make some breakfast in the tiny adjoining kitchen (really all part of the same small apartment room). Then I woke up.

In last night’s dream, I was on a vacation in Russia where some dream friends and I were playing a week-long espionage-themed live role-playing game. It was our first day and we were supposed to find a woman named Flint who we would be helping. We knew she was somewhere in a 2 street area, that she was being threatened, and we had only a few minutes to intervene in the situation. If we didn’t reach her in time, we didn’t “lose” or anything, we just missed out on that first “scene” and some potential points or clues or something.

Last night I dreamed that a bunch of folks were at my friend, Darin Murphy’s house (a totally fictional house as I’ve never seen his actual house). I remember it being quite large and roomy, very open with high ceilings and the main living room area was huge with a pointed “A” shape ceiling. It was getting late and he said any of us could stay over if we wanted. He told me I could stay in the spare bed in his son, “Fred’s” room. Then, in “Fred’s” room a small cursed doll of a creepy girl with white skin, black eyes (the kind Quint talks about in Jaws) and stringy black hair, dressed all in black came to life with a pair of scissors (very “Trilogy of Terror” inspired). I was on one side and a few other people were on the other. Somehow I knew that she would choose a target and everyone else would be safe. She chose me. A chase and struggle ensued. At one point I got the scissors away from her. I eluded the doll and was going to get to my car. As I went through the living room, Darin and a few others were there and kind of laughed and he said something about how they had all got up early to start their cars so their cars would be safe from the doll but I hadn’t. At that point I knew that I would find my tires slashed. I cautiously backed inside the house again and saw the doll trying to sneak up on me from outside the door.

Then thankfully I woke up, shook it off and listened to some Eckhart Tolle to get back to sleep.

This dream co-starred Dano Colón who I actually co-starred with in “People With Issues.”

I was visiting Dano in his office. His desk faced away from the door and his back was toward the door. The far side of the office from the door was completely open as if that side of the building had collapsed or something. No far wall, the far half of the ceiling, completely gone. Directly across from his desk near the edge of the floor by the opening was a really old, rust streaked toilet. I was standing between the toilet and the desk as you would if you wanted to talk to him at his desk. Up above was a series of chains hanging down on which were big industrial rounded scoops of some kind every 3-4′ down the chains. These chains were lowering the scoops through holes in the floor right at the edge by the opening.

Dano was not amused and seemed very weary at the whole scene. He said “I’ve told my boss these things keep activating on an automated schedule even though they are supposed to have been deactivated.” At this point I realized that the far side of the office hadn’t collapsed. Dano could open it up and he had to do so every time he heard the contraption whirring to life so it didn’t come crashing through the wall and ceiling. The chains starting raising up now, each scoop filled with industrial water from somewhere below and as they clumsily raised and shifted position to the right, a lot of that water would slosh onto the wall, the floor, come dangerously close to us and the desk. Dano just watched, deadpan, completely fed up. We exited the office and I tried to call the elevator but the controls were more complicated than normal elevator controls. I pressed what I thought the “down” button was, but then Dano pressed another switch to the side and a door opened and outdoor part of the floor that was sort of like a rooftop parking lot but there were workers all around doing construction and such.

He led me past some equipment and started talking to me as if he was having to “let me go” from my job. I was confused at first, but then realized this was all just a ruse because obviously someone might be listening and whatever it was I was doing there, no one could know so they needed to think I was just a worker and Dano was taking a walk with me to fire me.

Then I woke up and definitely made note that I needed to remember this exceptionally strange dream.

2 separate batches of dreams last night.

In the first, my friend Joanna Garner (who I worked with in real life as an actor on her own original play called 100 Heartbreaks) was helping me produce an original play I’d written, and I had all the stuff needed for opening night (set pieces, props, etc.) loaded up in my 1995 Nissan pickup (the first car I ever actually owned which I sold about 10+ years ago). I went inside the theater for a minute and came back out to find it stolen (I know we would have loaded that stuff in long before but dreams don’t have to make real world sense). There was a group of suspicious teens hanging around in winter clothing like long coats and beanies, sitting on some benches behind a fenced in area and I asked if they’d seen anything. They said they hadn’t but had these smug smirks like they knew something and were flaunting it. They asked if it was a sexy car and I said it was a Prius S and that the S stood for sexy (forgetting for the moment that it was actually the old Nissan and not my current car, a Prius, no “S”). I checked the front lot of the theater even though I knew I’d pulled up in the back.

My ex was in the play as well, but in the dream we were together. I remembered being kind of bummed that she hadn’t texted me or said hello when she arrived at the theater which was odd. I went to find Joanna to tell her what was going on. She was with another producer or someone like that, and was obviously in the middle of being really busy. I went to hug her but she just kind of put her hand on my shoulder and was like “I’m really busy at the moment” and it was all a bit awkward and deflating.

I had about 15 minutes to collect myself before I had to go on. I thought I should study my lines but decided to instead take one last walk to try and find the truck again wanting to believe that I had just forgotten where I parked it. I also remember hoping the police wouldn’t hold it against me that I waited until after the show to file a report because I didn’t have time before the show started to deal with all that.

In the second batch of dreams (I had woke up and then went back to sleep), the first once again featured my ex. Again, in the dream we were together and I was picking her up from something. She got in the car and was a bit teary and obviously had something on her mind. Dreading what was to come, I asked her what was up. She said “I know I broke up with you before,”

“Yes,” I said dreading where this was going.

“I want to breakup again but I want you to do it.”

Naturally I protested and said I didn’t want to and she pleaded her case as to why (I don’t remember the details).

Then in my next dream in this block, my friend Brian Villalobos and I were at the store and he was incensed that the price of jelly had gone up. I figured it was just inflation but he insisted that couldn’t be it because it had been the same price for at least 4 years. Taking a different approach I said “Yes but think about how many times prices on things have gone up in your lifetime.” He considered the thought skeptically.