What the Hell Is Wrong with Me?

I was listening to a little Daniel Johnston, and thinking about his mental illness made me think about a dream I had a few years ago. Dreaming is oddly important to me. Maybe it has something to do with it being my sole true outlet for creativity and I get a sort of psychic constipation when I'm not dreaming on a regular basis. Maybe it's connected to a stage of sleep that I'm not getting enough of during those period where I'm not dreaming. More likely, it's associated with the release of some loverly chemical in my head that makes me happy while I dream.

But regardless of the reason, I actually get a bit down and long for a good dream when it's been awhile. I've got very vivid memories of dreams from as far back as Kindergarten. I was running a fever one night and dreamed that I was being held hostage my mildly personified wildlife on my school's playground. I woke up screaming, but it was quite the beautiful dream. One of my favorites since becoming an adult is my lunch with Saddam Hussein. Imagine a marble plaza, long and narrow, filled with a dozen long and narrow koi ponds, each covered in evenly spaced lilly pads. To the right from the direction of where I stood was a towering city of mudbrick construction, much like the stereotype of north African and Middle Eastern architecture despite it's modern city altitude. To the left, a largely featureless vista of sand dunes all the way to the horizon. In front of me stood a smiling, and quite friendly Hussein. I forget the details of our small talk, but he offered me a sandwich. Suspicious of his motives I pluck a chicken salad on wheat from one of the lilly pads in the nearest koi pond. Yes, instead of flowers, the lillies sprout sandwiches, a different variety in each pool. We eat quietly and afterward I head into the city with my burlap sack and a handful of cash in search of a place to exchange my American currency for Iraqi coinage for my collection. It made me almost sad when Hussein was executed. He was such a pleasant fellow.

If someone ever developes a device to translate brainwaves so you can record your dreams to view in consciousness, I'm selling my house, moving to New York and becoming an art house legend. It'd be kind of cool to be one of those guys textbooks refer to as dieing penniless and never fully appreciated in their lifetime.