Dream a Little Dream For Me

I mentioned a little while back that I have some of the strangest dreams of anyone I know.  I kept meaning to put a dream journal next to my bed so I could record something that might eventually prove useful in writing.  We forget most of our dreams, so even those that seem so vivid usually fade away until only pieces remain.  According to legend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem Kubla Khan was inspired by a particularly intense dream Coleridge had, but he was forced to suspend writing halfway through.  When he returned to pen the rest of the poem, he couldn't remember anything.

I finally got off my lazy ass about a month ago and put a pad and pen next to my bed, ready to put down the craziness that pops into my head at night.  All I had to do was jot down what happened the moment I woke up.

(All monitors are on and working perfectly, Captain!)

However, I discovered a few annoying things about trying this recently.  First, I haven't had as many vivid dreams as I remember in the past.  I've woken up on many occasions convinced that I've had a dreams but the particulars always faded into vapors.  On the rare occasion that I've woken up from an intense dream, it's been in the middle of the night and I'm tired...so I rolled over and went straight back to sleep, confident that I'd wake up in the morning and still be able to record what went on.

Wrongo!

I finally managed to get one down the other day, and looking back at it makes me freak out a little bit.  Anyone remember the episode of Friends where Phoebe gave Monica this really hideous and terrifying painting/sculpture of a mannequin?  That piece of art made a very prominent appearance in a dream that went everywhere from inside a sewer where Sarah Palin and I were sifting through burnt rat bones, to the hotel suite(converted from my parents house) that I was running through like it was Game of Thrones.  And everywhere I turned, that damn Gladys painting/sculpture was present, either on the wall or in someone's hands.

I'm sure there's a nugget of an idea in there somewhere that I might be able to turn into a winning story, but I'm going to have to get over the overall weirdness factor of what I've been reading, as well as understanding that this was probably one of my more "normal" dreams.  My buddies have said for years that I need to get myself checked out over what comes in and out of my head, and re-reading the dream I had on Friday night, I'm starting to wonder if maybe they were right.

If I can find the energy to record my next few dreams - hopefully they'll start coming in more frequently - I wonder what I'll find...