Last night I dreamed that I was enjoying a newly issued CD of music by Martin Luther King, Jr. (Volume 4 of an ongoing series, no less!), and it was great. There was a Benedictus for Baritone and Orchestra and another piece called Elegy for Terrance Hamilton.
First of all, I know of no evidence that Dr. King ever wrote music of any kind. Certainly he could read music and play a little piano, but this was something else entirely. Second, the level of specificity in my dream was really astonishing. I awoke around five o’clock this morning and lay there impressed by the detail. Terrance Hamilton? Who is that? And, if–just hypothetically–Dr. King had been a composer, he might well have set an Elegy or the Song of Zachariah.
What amuses me most about all of this is how starkly it contrasts to my waking thoughts. I am about the least imaginative person alive. I couldn’t make up an original story to save my life. And sometimes, even my dreams aren’t even fantastic or unique, like when I recently dreamed that my friend Brenna was a mother. (She actually is a mom in real life.) Or how my friend Briana was a teacher. (She is.) Or when I awoke to tell Miriam that I dreamed I was a serial killer, but that I only killed other serial killers. She said, “that’s a TV show.”
Other times, though, my mind comes up with the most vivid and abstract notions, like the recent Kitty Karwash, or the dream where I was a two-year-old whose mother had just died, and my father explained that I’d be better off on my own, so I started my own life at two and had assorted adventures. There was a whole song and everything, and, shockingly enough, I remember it!
The best and most elaborate dream I had within the last few years involved: me awaking one morning and going about my day as normal. But along my drive that day a few things were not as usual, like a billboard where there wasn’t one before, a missing building, etc. The next day I arrived at work to find that there were some different people employed. Eventually, I awoke one morning to find I lived somewhere different and I had a different wife. Meanwhile, all this time I had been reading an increasing number of newspaper stories about a man somewhere on the other side of the world who was amassing huge wealth suddenly. Over the same period I was noticing these changes in my life, this man was becoming increasingly powerful. Nobody but me seemed to have the awareness that their lives were different, but I made the connection that this man must have found a way to alter time, and was using the ability to control the world around him to his advantage, even if it was to the detriment of others. It was all very cinematic.
If I ever publish a novel, be assured that the plot will be based on a dream I had.
Filed under: Friends, History, Musings on April 18th, 2008 | No Comments »