Where the subconscious meets the conscious

I woke up before 7AM this morning and because it was Saturday, I REALLY wanted to go back to sleep. I knew it wouldn't be hard. Anna's old enough now that she just gets up and watches TV or whatever till we get up. Still, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep so I grabbed my iPod from my bedside table and decided to put something on. Only trouble is, I don't have many playlists that are suited for sleeping. It really doesn't matter - I've gone to sleep with the sound of 90s Eurodance pumping into my ears, but this morning I put on my playlist based on the little known Dolly Parton song "Livin' A Lie" from her film Straight Talk. It plays out like a list of the who's-who-of-90s-female-country (with a couple of exceptions.) You'll have to click on the image to be able to read it.


I kinda like how Genius picked the Almighty Definitive dance mix of Faith Hill's "This Kiss" instead of the original.

One of my favorite things to happen when I listen to music as I sleep is when the songs I'm listening to end up in my dreams. This morning was one of those mornings. Here I was listening to this playlist while I slept in the early morning hours and I had this dream that I was a pharmacist at a nursing home and was walking around with a nurse who was making sure that the residents were all in bed. We went in this large circle through the hallways of the facility and as we came around to the front, a little old lady was escaping out the front door. As she ran away, she was singing Shania Twain's "Any Man Of Mine." The juxtaposition of this little old lady and sexy Shania is still kind of cracking me up.



For the record, I really never got into Shania Twain apart from her hits. I was also put off by her overuse of exclamation marks in song titles. If you doubt me, just look at the track listing for her album Up!

I remember several other songs in various dreams I had this morning - I must not have been sleeping very soundly. The Dolly song "Thought I Couldn't Dance" was in a dream where I was driving a car in Carroll and was driving so fast that the car took off and was flying over bumps in the road. Very strange. The subconscious mind can be a very confusing place.

Tattoo you

I just had one of those moments where I vividly remember a dream from last night that I had pretty much forgotten about all day long. I dreamt last night that I was getting a tattoo, and I was incredibly nervous about it. I had my arm out and whoever was doing the tattoo started in, even though I tried to jerk my arm away. I remember being nervous that it was going to hurt, but it didn't for some reason. I also remember it being just one little spot on my forearm that was being worked on.

When they were done, I had this elaborate tattoo all over my inner forearm and all the way up to my shoulder. What's even better is the entire upper arm was white, but the bottom was reindeer in a line all around my forearm, connected with little reins. I remember being just shocked at what the person doing the tattoo had done, and how I would never be able to wear short sleeves to work ever again.

I looked up what dreaming of tattooing means, and I found a variety of interpretations. They range from the what you'd expect (dreaming that you have tattoos represents individuality and a desire to stand out; wanting to be unique and different from everyone else) to the depressing (you are the object of a stranger's jealousy, someone from you past is hunting you, a difficulty will result in a long and tedious absence from your home.)

Mostly, I just think it's my slightly sick and still recovering from working overnights subconscious on overdrive. But as Fox Mulder says, "Dreams are the answers to questions we haven't yet figured out how to ask."

But don't worry, no real tattoos in my future. I'm too much of a wimp.

Sleep and dreams and Charo and Will Young

I came home from work tonight and fell asleep on the bed in my new office. It was a very surreal sleep because I heard the music that was playing pretty much the entire time I was asleep and had very bizarre dreams as well. The weirdest thing that I dreamt was I sat down to my computer and fired up Yahoo IM and not only did I have about 50 people on my contact list (in reality, I have exactly two people on that list, one of whom lives in the same house as me), but Charo was on that list. Yes, THAT Charo, and yes, she was online. What prompted my subconscious to think of Charo is absolutely beyond me (it's not like I've been watching reruns of The Love Boat or anything!), but I had to laugh when I woke up and realized what I had dreamt.

In completely unrelated news, Will Young's Let It Go leaked today and really, all there is to say is what XO said. Any album that dares channel 1960s Dionne Warwick horns on a track is okay in my book. It is the perfect antidote to some of the stuff I've had going on recently.

A whirlwind Medusa

I slept poorly all last night because I was dreaming crazy dreams involving Medusa (specifically the Ray Harryhausen Medusa from Clash of the Titans) in my backyard shooting arrows at people and me narrowly escaping her clutches. I also remember that her head was in the mailbox as well, which was kind of strange because she was also alive and in the backyard. I remember waking up from the dream and actually being a little bit scared, even though looking back at it now, it was a seriously ridiculous dream. In my semi-conscious state, the sounds of the cats in the hallway made me nervous. I mean, how stupid is that? I finally fell back to sleep and slept until almost 9:00.

I got to thinking that surely dreaming of Medusa must mean something, but a Google search proved rather fruitless. I was talking to Heidi about it and she said that you probably have to figure out what Medusa meant in the dream. I really have no idea, to be quite honest. There are a lot of ideas, one of which being that Medusa "represents the fear of death in the form of the face of a putrefying corpse." (via) There are also a lot of sexual interpretations of the Medusa myth, naturally. Some point to Medusa being the the ultimate male fear of being overtaken by female sexual power, hence her beheading and neutralization.

I was always fascinated by the Medusa myth. I remember my dad telling me that story as a kid while I was lying in bed at night. I was particularly impressed with how you would not turn to stone if you looked at her reflection. This tidbit was used to great effect in Clash of the Titans, a movie that is so gloriously cheesy it still works today. Harryhausen's depiction of Medusa will always be the definitive one for me, even though the effects are so sub par compared to what could be accomplished now. But there's a part of me that admires the Medusa effects in that movie, especially in a day and age where CGI would make that whole sequence far too easy.

I really wish I had picked up the Medusa figure at that comic shop in Chicago a few years back. Although I probably wouldn't be able to look at it right now.

And dream of semis

I stayed up too late last night and then had a hard time falling asleep once I finally did go to bed. Once I fell asleep, did I dream or what? Usually, I have a hard time remembering my dreams, but I woke up from this one in the middle of the night and now I wish I had written it down because I only remember parts of it now that morning has arrived. All I can say is that it was bizarre in the extreme.

What I do remember is that somehow, for some reason, I was part of the orchestra pit in the musical version of Convoy. I know. I need therapy. I've never even seen the movie and haven't heard the song in an age! At any rate, it was me and my buddy Yuri. (sorry, Yuri, not sure why you were dragged into that insanity!) We had signed up for this, but as we got involved in it, we realized that there WASN'T a musical version of Convoy, and that it was up to us to get the songs written and the plot developed and hire the actors and everything because they had booked a world tour of the show! With none of the particulars figured out! And they expected us, measly members of the pit, to come up with this.

Well, the next thing I know, the shows are being put on, but instead of being put on in a theater or an auditorium, but rather, they were all roadside on various interstates. What I remember are hundreds and hundreds of semi trucks lined up on the side of the road. And the orchestra pit? Well, it was a hole dug in the shoulder of the road. I was on the piano and I was not in the pit, for I distinctly remember the rush of the semis as they tore past me at 70 miles an hour just inches behind my back while the song "Convoy" was playing. I was nervous for my hearing as well because it was so damn loud.

And hanging on all these trucks were rednecks of every shape and sort. Yuri and I had to try to fit in with them, which got increasingly difficult as the dream went on, but we were making great money because the show was a huge hit, despite the fact that I felt like I was in extreme peril every night and a hair's breadth from being creamed by a semi.

I remembered so much more about it in the middle of the night and I'm kicking myself for not writing it down then, but then I probably would have been awake for the duration and, contrary to what I like to believe, I do need sleep to stay alive. But what an odd mess of imagery. I'm one of those folks that believes that your subconscious can speak to you through dreams, but I'm a bit baffled by this one. I can't stop thinking about the trucks being so close and although I was scared, it was also exhilarating. Food for thought, I'm certain.

So if my subconscious was speaking to me last night, it certainly was speaking in tongues. But Yuri? Nice to see you. :)

Subconscious craziness

I slept like a rock last night, but I dreamt like crazy as well. I don't frequently remember my dreams, but the ones I do remember are usually doozies. Last night was no exception.

My dreams frequently have celebrities in them - like the time I dreamt that I was at a Stevie Nicks concert (because her cover of Led Zeppelin's "Rock & Roll" was playing on my iPod as I slept) only when I went up to meet Stevie, she looked like Estelle Getty from "The Golden Girls" (!) Last night I dreamt I was at a concert and Casey Stratton was there with my friend Lucas (who has a great album available on iTunes - go check it out!) and another performer who I can't remember. In any event, we were in a pretty big arena - probably like the Auditorium Theater in Chicago or CY Stephens here in Ames - not the coffeehouses that Casey will frequently play. The place was so big that I remember having to sit BEHIND the stage! Anyway, they each played a solo set, and then played a few numbers together at the end. I only remember one song.

It was Diana Ross' "Take Me Higher."

I swear to God I wasn't listening to my iPod while I slept last night. I don't even remember the last time I'd even THOUGHT of that song, let alone listened to it.

Of course, it prompted a huge Diana Ross listening party this morning as I did my morning surf and e-mail check. And "Take Me Higher" got played 3 times.

The insanity of the subconscious sometimes baffles even me. But what baffles me even more than that is that this is the only instance of the song (in a non-live format) that I could find on YouTube. Diana Ross hilariously set to the Care Bears Movie.