Category: Dream Theatre

I dreamt that the movie “Milk” with Sean Penn was an action movie that ended with a frenetic gun fight between Sean Penn and Eddie Murphy. There was lots of firing, jumping, flipping through the air, taking cover, etc. The scene ended in a standoff as they flipped past each other in the air with Milk landing, sitting on the floor in a corner and Eddie Murphy across a few feet away. As they pointed guns at each, Eddie’s character was taunting Milk saying “Come on! Shoot me! Go ahead!” But Milk wouldn’t shoot so Eddie quickly, and coldly shot him in the head. What a weird-ass dream.

I hesitated to document this one because it’s about her again. Nothing crazy, but I just didn’t want “Dream Theatre” to become exclusively about her. There’s been many more dreams of her I haven’t documented here but I remembered a lot of weird details about this one.

I was t a hotel for some reason and we had arranged for her to call me to catch up. The first time we would be actually speaking since my banishment. The phone rang, I answered and it was a bit of a confusing beginning as she was with someone on her end (him maybe), and whoever she was with was joking around and obviously distracting her as a joke. They shouted “She loves you!” playfully and she quieted them down to begin the conversation. I don’t remember anything in particular that was said, but I remembered that she had changed her number. It was no longer an Austin number. She had just moved to L.A. from Nevada so I figured it must have been one of those two and wondered why she had bothered changing numbers since area codes don’t mean much these days.

I had walked into the hotel and at the entrance to the bar which was closed at the moment, so while there was no one there, the door was open and it was a nice quiet place to talk. Two young men approached me and started to surround me and I could tell something was up. Next thing I knew, They had grabbed me, picked me up and were trying to pull me out the bar door and into these other doors where I presumed they would rob and beat me. While still on the phone, I started yelling for help and grabbing on to the door frame of the bar, trying to keep from getting pulled out. Then everything kind of froze like paused video game as I started analyzing my options and whether I could get a good angle to land a punch on either of them.

Then I woke up.

Once again, starring her. In this dream I was scrolling on Facebook and saw some pictures I had never seen of her in some stage show. They were very good, professional quality shots of her on stage, one in a leotard striking a very ballet-like pose. She was very lithe and toned like a Cirque Du Soleil performer. I wondered what and when this show had been and at first I thought maybe it wasn’t her. Checking her profile, I was initially confused as the profile picture was just a low resolution brownish themed logo of some kind and the name was just a random phrase, more than a name. Possibly something like “iPhone Brown,” though I can’t remember if that was actually it in the dream. I confirmed that it was indeed her and thought maybe she had just changed her name and picture since some people do that kind of thing for more privacy.

Then I woke up.

We were both staying at the same house for some reason. I think it belonged to someone we both knew. We had taken great care to avoid each other and hadn’t seen each other at all. It was late at night and everyone else was asleep. I turned a corner just as she was coming down the stairs and there we were, face-to-face. We both froze for a moment, not sure what to do, then instinctively, awkwardly kissed each other (in a quick, friendly way), then laughed as we both realized what she then verbalized, “Oh, wait, we can’t do that any more.” We started to talk and catch up. I think she sat on the back of the sofa and I sat sideways on a stool at the kitchen bar, a few feet away. It was warm and friendly. There was still love there. Much went unsaid.

Then I woke up with a heavy sigh, and a heavy heart. 

Still relevant:

I had a dream where someone reached to shake my hand and I was like “Hey, sorry, can’t do that right now.” Sign of the times.

I also had a dream that John Herndon was producing a western and I was one of the leads. He also then asked me to direct it. I was thrilled to do so but as we were setting up a shot, the gaffer seemed very stand-offish and resistant to me and had an attitude so I took him aside and introduced myself and was very kindly like “So what’s the issue here?”

He said he had worked with me on a few shorts and just didn’t like me or think I should be directing. I told him I was sorry he felt that way and hoped I could change his mind.

As we tried to get the next shot, we were very quickly losing the light and then very suddenly it was gone so I started looking for alternatives.

Later, I was trying to wrangle everyone to get another shot and everyone was kind of scattered. I asked what was going on and they said John and some others were part of a Q&A panel going on. That’s when I noticed that this ghost town we were shooting in was having some kind of festival and so there was a lot of people and music and stuff going on. We couldn’t do anything until the panel was over and even then with all the people and noise there was no way we could get a shot.

Someone asked if this meant we would be working super late and I said no, I didn’t believe in that. I was going to hold to reasonable days because pushing people gets diminishing returns so we’d figure it out later and try to move quickly and find ways to make up time and maybe shots we could cut.

Then I woke up. That imaginary gaffer is probably gloating.

In this dream I was snuggled up on a couch with Jane Wiedlin, guitarist for The Go-Gos. We were both lying down on the couch (a tight fit for two people, but possible). I was reading and she was watching something on TV, I think. Something on the TV kind of bummed her out and she turned to me a little distraught with the state of the world, so I put the book down, put both arms around her and hugged her tight. In that moment, the world was a little better.

A trio of strange dreams last night. The first two seem to share a theme of fear of lending stuff to people. At least on the surface.

In part 1, I was working (not sure in what capacity) in a big space in a strip mall. My friend Kyle (who I once worked with at a video game company) had borrowed my car, which in the dream was the red Mazda 323 that was my mom’s car and the first car I learned to drive and shared with her in the subsequent years. He had supposedly returned from his errand and parked it back at the strip mall (where he worked with me, I believe). It was a late night of work and as I was leaving to go home around 7pm or so, I saw some people walking out in a group. There was something strange about their look and demeanor, and I think I overheard something indicating that there was about to a news story about them, and how they had been caught up in some scandal.

I walked out to parking lot to go home, but I couldn’t find my car. I looked all around the parking lot but it was nowhere. I looked several more times, thinking surely I had just missed it, but it was not there. I called Kyle to confirm that he had returned it and to ask if he had maybe parked it somewhere else. I was starting to freak out a little as I was sure it had been stolen.

Now the next part, in true dream non-logic style, I’m not sure if it actually “happened” in the dream or if it was just one of the branches my mind was contemplating as a possible explanation, but when I got Kyle on the phone, he was very apologetic and realized that he had just absent-mindedly drove it home when he left.

In part 2 of this dream trio, I was in a particular neighborhood of my home town near where my friend Esteban used to live. A woman (in the dream, I knew her, but I don’t remember her having a specific real world identity), asked if she could borrow my phone, so I handed it to her thinking that she just needed to look something up or make a quick call. She pulled up the navigation software and started walking away, and kept walking. Far too late, I realized that she was going to use my phone to navigate all the way to her destination, and I had no idea where that was or when I would get my phone back. At some point, I either got a hold of her or saw her again (I can’t remember which) and she said my phone was still at the destination and that I could come get it if I wanted to, which was highly inconvenient for me.

And in the last dream, I was being put up in a (purely fictional) apartment as part of a movie shoot. This apartment was right next to the (also purely fictional) apartment that my ex had lived in. The shoot had ended and I was now leaving the apartment when my phone rang and it was, coincidentally, my ex calling me for the first time in years. I remember the tone of the conversation being happy, sweet, close and immediately there was an intimate connection again. I told her how crazy it was that she happened to be calling at this moment as I was leaving the place I’d been staying which was right next to her old place. It was really nice.

Then I woke up.

In last night’s dream, I was doing another western themed immersive activation like the SXSWestworld I did last year with MyCoToo and Giant Spoon. I was a sheriff and Andrew Hunter was in it as well as was his wife, Elizabeth Hunter. Andy played a crotchety town drunk and Liz played his wife. It turned out that their characters were con-artists trying to defraud the town. I remembered that I also needed to take an audition for the next immersive activation (This year’s Game of Thrones activation) that was due at 4pm, so Andy and I went to an upstairs room so he could help me film it. I couldn’t remember if it was due at 4 or if I was supposed to record it at 4, and being that it was almost 4 now, I just decided to hope for the best. In the dream, I was actually remembering the monologue that I recently (in the real non-dream world) had thought would have been good if I had been available to audition for the GoT activation.

Dream Theatre 48 guest starred Emily Hahn! In this dream, a bunch of us had just finished performing a play and it was super late so Emily let a few of us crash at her place because we were all there after the show. She had a huge husky-type dog who was the cuddliest ever. He actually liked to snuggle up, put his legs around you and rest his head on yours and lick your face. It was the best thing ever.

Dream Theatre 49 was very busy. As in I had lots of work to do so it didn’t feel like a restful night. One dream I remember was that June Griffin Garcia needed a 41 page voiceover by tomorrow and I said I could do it. Then I had another pending project as well so it looked like it was going to be an all nighter. I seem to also remember doing some work in a computer repair type workshop

Wow. So many crazy dreams last night. Let’s see how much I can remember. 

First I was on a shuttle bus to Disney World. We were almost there and I realized that I had only brought a warm long sleeved shirt and my Indiana Jones leather jacket. I was annoyed because even just the shirt was going to be too hot and now I was going to have to carry this stuff around all day and be shirtless. I thought I would just buy a T-shirt when I got there. Also I was wearing gym shorts so they would look stupid with shorts. 

When we arrived we were all led to a big waiting room that was like a locker room. A worker came in and asked if we had seen the big buildings and spaceships as we approached. Somehow, I had not noticed, probably because I was so preoccupied with my clothing dilemma. 

She (the worker) explained that earth had been invaded buy aliens and we were all needed to fight for our survival. I now realized that this was all part of the totally immersive new experience at the park. A huge sci-fi super advanced laser tag type place with a futuristic city, building sized alien spaceships to fight in, etc. We were each given a gun in a holster that strapped to our thigh with two straps. She asked “How far do you think any one of you would get alone out there?” 

I screamed “Let’s find out!” And I jumped up and ran out the open bunker door into the fray. 

Immediately, robotic aliens resembling the Geth from the Mass Effect video games started appearing and coming toward me. Big silver robotic aliens, with sleek muscle like contours and a face that was one big red glowing circle. I started blasting and quickly realized that you could one or two shot them if you hit the red “eye.” More and more started appearing and it was obvious I wasn’t supposed to take this force on alone. I noticed holographic power ups appear around the ground and the aliens would grab them for shields or other powers. I couldn’t get to them at this point before the aliens so I decided to run and see how far I could get. I dashed into the streets dodging and firing. I eventually made my way to huge alien building (or possibly gargantuan ship). 

Inside was the size of a huge office building with computers and such and a huge staircase built into a slanted floor leading up to another level and then on to another and so on like one side of a pyramid. 

At this point there was a break in the dream, possibly for some other dreams but I can’t remember the order or details exactly. I do remember that at some point I was back here and this time knowing it was a dream decided to count the levels to see how many there were leading up and away in front of me. It was hard to count them as they seemed to change or multiply as I tried but I eventually counted about 15 levels. 

Then suddenly I had a disguise. I activated my disguise and was now dressed as one of the humanoid alien workers in an a white and black uniform and mask. I started fiddling with the computers trying to figure out controls and messing with crystal device that was inserted in one of the computers. Other workers would acknowledge me and I would nod, hoping to not be discovered. Then one worker came up to me and said a phrase, something like “Point 432.” I had a feeling this was a security phrase and I was supposed to issue a particular response. I didn’t know the response of course so in an effort to distract and not get discovered, I started blatantly coming on to her. It seemed to work for the moment. Sadly, I think that’s all there was (or all I remember) to that world. 

Dream 2 involved me and Larry Soileau writing a silly comedy short. We wrote this short skit where I played Rick James and was giving a serious monologue about Rick James’ charity for abused and battered women or something like that. It was all very earnest like “We all know someone who has been abused or gone through hard times,” etc. Then the punchline was that after this heartfelt plea, it ended with Rick James yelling “BITCH!” Because that was his “catch phrase” in this dream world and we thought the dichotomy in tone was hilarious. Look, dreams are weird man. Larry and I actually wrote really funny stuff in the real world. 

In dream 3, I woke up and Larry and I shared a huge house with glass walls on the bottom level. He was a about to leave and I started telling him all about my crazy Disney World Alien Battle dream. I was about half way through when he informed me that he really had to leave to be somewhere, so I didn’t get to finish my story. He grabbed his stuff and went outside and threw down his remote control hover board which was the size of a skateboard with propellers built into the board at the front and back. He had the remote in his left hand with his jacket and stuff, and gave a kick to get going. He hovered off at a very slow pace, probably about half as fast as waking which made me wonder what was the point in using the board if it was that slow. I wondered if maybe it got faster after warming up or something. 

In dream 4, I got an out of the blue text from my ex asking “Enjoying a day off?” I’m not sure if it was dream me, or real me who wondered “How did she know today is my day off?” but I responded with “Very much needed!” She also sent me a video of the condo after it had been cleared out right before she left it for the last time. The video had some text on it like you add after the fact in Instagram saying something like “The condo as of two day ago.” I hadn’t seen this posted on Instagram though so I was puzzled. Maybe she just added the text another way before sending it to some other folks before or something. Or maybe she had some way of hiding posts from me. And though I was shocked to get this message, I thought it was a good sign that she was just texting me like it was normal and that maybe she wouldn’t just be “Somebody that I used to know.” I was glad for the exchange but the video also made me sad. 

I think that’s about all I can recall. My brain had a busy night.