Dreams

[meggha]

yeah, give it another shot---the dream journal, i mean.
i'm still trying to get to a more lucid state in my dreams. Rarely it happens, where i can say, "HEY, this is just a fucking dream, GO NUTS, HAVE FUN!!" But it's hard to hold onto that control. It is amazing though when you have a dream where you go stand in front of the ocean as the tides coming in in crashing waves over you and you can feel them crashing down, and then one of the waves just stands still in front of you and you have a moment to breathe and relax and see the beauty of such an intense, sublime, REAL moment.

Usually, my dreams seem like a greater reality in my life than my waking life. It's easy to get stuck in that world, but I guess I suffer most in trying not to get stuck there, but just to accept....bending with the wind until i can become one with it.
ya know?

[tomEisenbraun]

Damn, just dreamt I sat down with Jimmy Page and he took me through a few demos from LZ IV.

Dammit I wish I could record the music I hear in dreams.

[weeniebeenie]

Damn, just dreamt I sat down with Jimmy Page and he took me through a few demos from LZ IV.

Dammit I wish I could record the music I hear in dreams.

I hate when you write an awesome song in your dream and can't remember it when you wake up.

[tomEisenbraun]

Had an in. sane. dream about Nick Drake last night.

Don't have the time to write it down now, but I wanted to bump the thread so it'd be easy to find when I get back from work. We're talking all sorts of weird here.

[meggha]

Can't wait to here about your dream, Tom.
I was shocked to find this thread with a new post after logging in for the first time in two weeks. Very Nice!

[tomEisenbraun]

Okay, so I'll guess I'll preface last night's dream by letting you guys in on the Nick Drake fixation I've developed this week. Realized Monday that a new guitar means I can actually play higher up on the neck on my acoustic, which means I've got absolutely nothing stopping me from learning some Nick Drake tunes. The song "Pink Moon" has quickly turned into album of the same name, and I've got close to 8 or 9 Drake tunes at my disposal now. My goal is the entirety of Pink Moon and putting together a tribute show or maybe even some sort of benefit thing with local artists covering Drake tunes to raise money for depression or suicide awareness at this local place called Nuçi's Space that has practice rooms and a performance area and free counseling services. Anywho, this Drake obsession finally played itself out last night in a dream.

I don't know where I was coming from, and place tends to bear little importance in my dreams, as far as interconnectedness to actual locations goes, but I was nearing my destination (which I'm almost certain was my current "home") and notice a man standing slightly across the street. I would have lived in one of these little houses (perhaps apartments? flats?) that stood directly adjacent to a river, separated from it by this road, which is really more of a parking area than a busy road.

Anyhow, I see this man standing there and I don't even recall any hesitation as I recognized him as a 60 year old Nick Drake. I wasn't dumbfounded at the thought that he hadn't died, but more at the fact that he was there, almost as if he was waiting for me. He confirmed that I was right and that he was, indeed, Nick Drake, and he showed me to where he lived.

On the walk there, I remember feeling overwhelmed with emotion. I'd just spent this week delving into Pink Moon again, after so many years of listening to the album and trying to understand the man behind it. This week I listened and had been moved by something so small as a near stumble across the notes toward the end of a verse in "Road" and recognized, in that moment, how frail the musician had become, picking this misstep up to carry it into the next line unquestioned and unapologetically. But to the ear listening to try and understand how to wrap my head around his playing, I recognized that what was held in that one small moment was something completely irreplicable. And in that connection, I had somehow grown a bond with this artist. For him to come to me was overwhelming on several different levels, as if he understood what I was beginning to find of him, and chose to share it with me personally, that I might finally get to glimpse the man so few know much about.

On the walk to his home, I noticed that his left hand was withered, and not only slightly. The entire hand from about the wrist on down had a grey-ish green tint to it, as if the hand itself were on the verge of death. I silently understood why we'd heard no music from him in the past 34 years, and how death sounds so much better than losing a hand in such a way. This wasn't discussed between us at all, though, and here's where the story gets odd.

He leads me into his home, which is a nice humble-looking little place, built in a very similar manner to what I would have expected the inside of the previously mentioned "home" to look like. We walk in through the kitchen and upstairs to a sort of landing/living room area, where I'm either hearing music or a television set (I believe it's a television set, but I'm a little foggy). Strangely enough, Nick Drake is also seated at the top of this landing, holding his guitar, again as if waiting for me. I'm now in the room with two of him. Again, strangely, I don't remember this puzzling me. It simply was, and this was how he was choosing to reveal himself to me.

This second Drake's hand was in the same condition as the first, but he was holding the guitar and I found no reason to feel guilty for asking him if I might hear him play, acknowledging the hand, finally. He obliged and, through some effort, began to play. His deformity had changed his style, though. His fingers were close to wooden, and he hurt visibly as he played, but it was still beautiful. It came out in a style far less chordal than his work on Pink Moon, more slowly melodically based.

As the Drake with the guitar was playing for us, I sat next to the other Drake on the couch as he opened a book of scraps to show me the news of his life. In truth, there shouldn't have been very much to it, but in the dream, there was quite a bit. I looked up to realize, as the first Drake held up an original vinyl of Bryter Layter, that our companion in this living room was the exact same Drake, holding the exact same Fylde acoustic as on the cover of the album, merely some thirty years advanced in age. (I might add that he, in fact, did not play a Fylde guitar, and this was my memory playing connect-the-dots with a book I'm reading about the guitar building process, but that's not exactly important. In the case of the dream, the Fylde he was playing was truth, and there was a connection made in that.)

As I listened to Drake's playing, I noticed my companion Drake stand up next to me and leave the couch. It should be mentioned that some time has passed, but I can't recall exactly how much, except that it was late afternoon before and it has become decidedly dark. I didn't pay much attention to where my friend had gone to until the entire room began to turn inside out and I realized that the black and white tv in the center of the room had begun blaring and turning haywire. All of our power had gone out and the borders that were the walls began to fluctuate strongly. The remaining Drake and I jumped to our feet to examine the tv, which was our only light source and obviously the most important aspect of our situation, and from inside it we spied our previous companion. He was walking or perhaps peering out from around the corners of static, having moved from our world into that of the television set.

There was definitely a sense of haunting surrounding the experience, in that there was a certain rush of intense emotion and fear while this was going on, but it settled back down and evened out, and my new companion and I both looked at each other as if to suggest we had no idea what had not happened. He didn't appear to be too worried about the new whereabouts of his other half, however, and so I felt no need to extend the worry either.

The hours grew later and I suppose I must have been invited to stay the evening, because at some point, I was definitely still inside the house and awake while Nick slept. It was during this time that, inside the scrapbook he had previously shown me, I understood how I had been able to meet Drake. A small news clipping pointed to his marriage at age 26 to a wife, also aged 26, and made light of his daughter's leaving home this same year at age 19. It suddenly became quite obvious to me what had happened: he had decided to remove himself from the limelight completely, and his death had allowed him to have exactly that removal. At the time, the ages seemed to make decent sense, but his daughter should have either been much older, or must have been born of a different wife. Regardless, perhaps it was his strange physical condition and the possible haunting of his being that drove her away.

After this, nothing of much importance happened. I realized that I wanted to leave, but had to wait until morning, when I met Nick again downstairs, and then the dream began to shift into a weird side reality that had nothing to do with the previous dream, and which I promptly forgot most of in struggling to remember this much upon waking.


I don't know entirely what to do with the dream, though I do feel somewhat honored by it, that I was able to have a glimpse of the man in a world that has absolutely no recorded footage of his playing. Even if the playing I saw was performed with a crippled fretting hand, it holds importance in that I was able to see his hands move, to understand the manner of grace with which he approached his fretboard, to glimpse inside the life of the musician, and for him to acknowledge me in my appreciation of his work.

Certainly epic, at least to me. It intrigues me that I'm having dreams where these artists are sitting down with me to share vulnerable aspects of their creativity with me. I'm not sure I know if that means anything, or if I should think it means anything, but it's certainly an inspiration of sorts, to think maybe I'd have some homage to pay to them that might possibly make them proud.

End of the longest post I've made in my entire history on the board....now.

[capt. scotty]

I was going to read that but I cant read a bible right now.

Saved for later.

[meggha]

Wow Tom, that's an amazing story. I can't write too much now because I am floating more and more into dream land as the night gets darker, but I just want to say briefly that I have felt similar encounters and presences with great beings in my own dreams. Maybe not always so detailed and revealing as yours, but the point is that these occurrences in dreams are often more real than what we experience when awake. Not only do they feel real, but since someone has experienced, it IS real.
I was listening to Dondante earlier today, thinking about dreams I've had of dead loved ones. One dream involved a friend who had committed suicide, the same friend who first introduced me to MMJ. My roommate, who was even closer with this friend, has felt his presence in the owls that live in our neighborhood. They visited her in our backyard on his birthday and the anniversary of his death this year. Just sat there, and looked at her, and hooted.
There's so much that humans naturally block out of their daily perceptions, but these unseen/unheard/unfelt things truly exist, and I believe that they become clearer in our dream worlds.

Whoosh, I could talk for a long time about all of this. In the meantime, I will continue to think about this subject and this dream you had, and I'm sure I will be posting here again very soon.

[tomEisenbraun]

Wow Tom, that's an amazing story. I can't write too much now because I am floating more and more into dream land as the night gets darker, but I just want to say briefly that I have felt similar encounters and presences with great beings in my own dreams. Maybe not always so detailed and revealing as yours, but the point is that these occurrences in dreams are often more real than what we experience when awake. Not only do they feel real, but since someone has experienced, it IS real.
I was listening to Dondante earlier today, thinking about dreams I've had of dead loved ones. One dream involved a friend who had committed suicide, the same friend who first introduced me to MMJ. My roommate, who was even closer with this friend, has felt his presence in the owls that live in our neighborhood. They visited her in our backyard on his birthday and the anniversary of his death this year. Just sat there, and looked at her, and hooted.
There's so much that humans naturally block out of their daily perceptions, but these unseen/unheard/unfelt things truly exist, and I believe that they become clearer in our dream worlds.

Whoosh, I could talk for a long time about all of this. In the meantime, I will continue to think about this subject and this dream you had, and I'm sure I will be posting here again very soon.

Meggha, I'd love to hear about your perceptions of connections with people beyond this life, either on here or in a PM if it's something that'd be more well-suited to that, but I'm definitely curious to know more about what you think about those connections. I don't quite know if there's anything specifically to draw out of that, but I am a bit curious about what you've experienced and wonder if I might be able to draw some connections...

[Love Dogg]

Dammit I wish I could record the music I hear in dreams.

I hate when you write an awesome song in your dream and can't remember it when you wake up.

I hate that.  I write entire orchestrations...finished product in my dreams.  Sometimes I can even hear it playing as I revert from REM back to awake reality.  But I can never capture it...never.  :(

[Hawkeye]

So yeah, I thought we had a dream thread here.  I just had a really vivid "ghost" dream.  I was falling asleep on the couch, probably only asleep 15 minutes, when I started dreaming.  In the dream, I woke up to try to turn the TV off to go to bed.  I made it about halfway to the TV, then suddenly couldn't move, and had an out of body experience.  I was watching myself, literally frozen, and unable to turn off the TV.  Then I started getting the feeling of losing balance and falling, and suddenly I was on the couch again, but being pushed down forcefully into the couch.  I tried to resist and push back up, but couldn't move.  I then heard a loud, growling sound, like a demon anouncing its presence.  This continued for what seemed like about 10 seconds, and then I forced myself awake, scared shitless.  I got up, a little dizzy, made sure all the doors were locked, turned off the TV, and went to my room.  Being very paranoid at this point, I did a sign of the cross over my doorway and started praying and commanding any "demons" to leave.  As I was doing this, my leg started shaking and I was getting constant "nerve" sensations throughout my body and shooting up to my head.  It was crazy.  I'm sure these were all just nervous, scared sensations, but damn.

I have these "ghost" dreams a few times a year.  They're always violent, with the ghost holding me down or throwing me around the room.  Crazy.  I'm not crazy or anything and I'm not even 100% sure I believe in ghosts or spirits (although I do lean in that direction).  Thanks for letting me vent.

That being said, I am very interested in dreams:  mostly their meaning and one's ability to control them.  I've heard that if you easily recall your dreams, you have a fairly good chance at learning to control them.  I have controlled mine at least a few times (quite powerfully; I actually thought I had met God, or at least a higher power, in one of them), and I had a desire to learn to do that awhile back.  Maybe I'll start exploring that again.  Hopefully I can sleep now!  I'd fall asleep to Acoustic Chorale but my computer is such a POS it won't even play it right.  Tom Waits' The Heart of Saturday Night or Elliott Smith's New Moon will have to do.

[Hawkeye]

Reading that at a reasonable hour of the day, not paranoid or on Nyquil, makes me sound completely off my rocker  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D  I blame the Quil

[ManNamedTruth]

Reading that at a reasonable hour of the day, not paranoid or on Nyquil, makes me sound completely off my rocker  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D  I blame the Quil

You're not supposed to drink the whole bottle  ;)

[Hawkeye]

Reading that at a reasonable hour of the day, not paranoid or on Nyquil, makes me sound completely off my rocker  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D  I blame the Quil

You're not supposed to drink the whole bottle  ;)

Really?  Shit I should really start reading directions.  I think it was just a weird combo of things.  My buddy had some leftover hydrocodone, just took one of those, then, ahem, relaxed, cough cough, ahem, then took some nyquil before bed...must have been the combo that did it

Is anyone here into dreams though?  Anyone remember them vividly/able to control them/want to control them?  I've gone back and forth with myself for quite awhile debating on the worth of the whole exercise

[woodnymph]

Here we gooooooo!

[woodnymph]

Well crap, I had a weird one just last night already... somehow made my way to the top of a super snowy hilltop (I wouldn't say mountain, but very high hill, like one you might ski.) Can't recall how I got there, but was with a handful of girlfriends at the top.  And the TOP was an entirely too-narrow surface, where if you leaned too far to one side, you'd fall right over the edge. ) We were all stretched out on our stomachs so not to fall over either side... when all of a sudden the very area in front of us lit up like a fire, and it was the sun either rising or just coming out from behind thick clouds... but one friend got her camera out and started to get some pictures. So I (nervously) moved an arm to dig in a pocket where I had my camera, and I too started taking some pictures. I remember being so bundled up that any movement was kind of difficult, especially trying to "hold on" so I didn't slip backward or forward...

The pictures I started to take were unnatural. I zoomed in really far while focusing on the sun, and in the dream I questioned how safe that was! But through my lens, I saw the sun as a fiery orange sphere, with solar flames surrounding it, and a white-hot light around it.... I actually found a picture online almost identical to what I "took":



......then my camera slipped down the steeper side in front of us.... and I remember watching where it fell in reference to where we were... there were 5-6 houses in a line directly in front of us, and a cluster of trees between us and the houses... so I was reasoning that when we got down, I would attempt to align myself with those houses and trees in order to try and find the camera...

When all of a sudden one of the girls starts falling down the damn hill chasing after the camera! I just remember yelling "no! no! no!!!!" But she was ok when she finally stopped, and she got up and tried to come back up the hill.... it was way too steep, and the dream transitioned there, no idea what happened after all that........ so weird  ???

[woodnymph]

I had the greatest dream ever last night!  I was hangin out with Penny and Brooke (I don't recall where...)  But we had a blast!  It seemed so real, and we all just cracked up the whole time hahahah I hope to see you girls soon, that made me miss ya!!

[Penny Lane]

I had the greatest dream ever last night!  I was hangin out with Penny and Brooke (I don't recall where...)  But we had a blast!  It seemed so real, and we all just cracked up the whole time hahahah I hope to see you girls soon, that made me miss ya!!

that's crazy because bluesky, Brooke, and i are hanging out tonight...!

(also, i just got my tix, i'll be in asheville 6/24 and 6/25)

[johnnYYac]

I had the greatest dream ever last night!  I was hangin out with Penny and Brooke (I don't recall where...)  But we had a blast!  It seemed so real, and we all just cracked up the whole time hahahah I hope to see you girls soon, that made me miss ya!!

that's crazy because bluesky, Brooke, and i are hanging out tonight...!

(also, i just got my tix, i'll be in asheville 6/24 and 6/25)

So, in her dream, Woody became bluesky! 

If A=B and B=C, then Jenn=Val!

[bluesky]

;D ;D ;D

I had the greatest dream ever last night!  I was hangin out with Penny and Brooke (I don't recall where...)  But we had a blast!  It seemed so real, and we all just cracked up the whole time hahahah I hope to see you girls soon, that made me miss ya!!

that's crazy because bluesky, Brooke, and i are hanging out tonight...!

(also, i just got my tix, i'll be in asheville 6/24 and 6/25)

So, in her dream, Woody became bluesky! 

If A=B and B=C, then Jenn=Val!