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Mmmm....Weekend.
I know it's a weekend when, after being awake for six hours, I can opt for a four-hour nap without being fired.
But before my dream, there was another dream, courtesy of Joss Whedon.
"Restless" was rerun on Fox today, and I had forgotten how brilliant it was. Dream sequences are a part of our general understanding of how stories are told. A scene occurs that seems incongruous, and we discover that it was a dream. A critical piece of information cannot be found, and it is discovered in a dream. Someone gets hit on the head with a coconut, and suddenly all of one's friends are playing roles in whatever was last seen.
But of all of the dreams that I've ever seen portrayed in on page, stage or screen, none of them have ever looked at all like my dreams except for this episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What always sends chills down my spine when I watch it is the brilliant way that Whedon describes nonlinear geography, something that always happens in my dreams. (Example: Xander walks out of his basement and is in a park, where he sees himself in an ice cream truck across the street. Suddenly he is the one in the ice cream truck and he's driving. He climbs into the back of the truck, squeezes above the freezers, and crawls out a grate leading into, the basement where he started. In the same way, Willow gets lost in a seemingly short stretch of curtain.) That's what it's like moving around in my dreams.
Beyond that, the dialogue is alternately hilarious and bizarre. ("Sometimes I think about two women doing a spell... and then I do a spell by myself.") And although I can't pin it onto anything specific, I know that I've heard lines very similar to the ones performed in the rather unusual version of Death of a Salesman.
Finally, the vignettes really cut to the hearts of the characters to a degree that rarely gets explored at any other time. It almost makes me want to watch season six. Almost.
My memory of my dream picks up (I think) about 33% into it. This isn't too important since there were major character and plot changes after this. I was at Disneyland, or a place with a similar theme-park resonance, and I was feeling very lonely, so I left my friends a little after sunset to go back to my hotel room and...ahem...cast some spells by myself. But as I'm walking out of the gate (getting my hand stamped just in case), I see my girlfriend. (I don't recall if she was anyone who I know in real life, but I knew she was my girlfriend. In fact, she was my girlfriend of several years with whom I was considering marriage.) She wasn't supposed to have been able to make it to this trip, to my great sadness, but through some behind-the-scenes dream contrivance, she was here now. We embraced, and she locked onto my arm and pulled me back into the park with a few hours of fun till the park closed, followed by a romantic Monorail ride back to our room.
At some point during our time in the park, the setting of the dream changed from Disneyland to a secluded island, and the main character changed from me to a teenage girl. Also, the time shifted to the future. See, the girl was living with her mother on the island where her grandfather had experimented with robotics and artificial intelligence. The result was a cross between the North Pole and Tron, where the AI of the various creations interacted and merged to create a fantastical setting that was always changing.
It was clear, though, that things were changing in ways that were not expected. The girl's five-year-old brother was becoming obsessed with "fly people," creatures with the bodies and clothing of a five-year-old boys, but having oversized alien heads. These fly people would "attack" the island in waves, although it wasn't clear what they wanted.
Following a trail of anagrams in a local library, our heroine learned some interesting things. In addition to being a brilliant inventor and technician, her grandfather was also a prolific writer of pulp novels. Further, his partner in these ventures of science and fiction was the same man who was the caretaker of the island. They had written about many of the peaceful citizens of the island, but they had also written about the strange and dangerous beings that had only recently begun to appear. She took this information to her mother, who become so upset that she told the heroine a great secret. Her grandfather was living on the island, but didn't want to be seen. Suddenly, her brother rushed into the room wearing a fly-person mask which he couldn't remove, followed immediately by a swarm of fly people. The girl and her mother dragged the young boy to safety and finally removed the mask from him, but he was unconscious. Mother decided that she must finally take her daughter to meet her grandfather.
Meanwhile, the caretaker, who also had been the grandfather's partner, made a secret visit to the grandfather's house. Speaking through a ten-foot-long tube through rock, the caretaker explained that too much had gone wrong for him to handle or understand, and that he needed help. Grandfather scolded him. "You have more processing power than the rest of the island combined," he said, "and access to far more information than I could reach." "But," the caretaker argues, "I do not have the vision any more." Ultimately, the grandfather let him in.
The family made a long and harrowing trek across the island, harassed by fly people and other strange and new menaces that the girl had seen in her grandfather's novels. When they finally reached the entrance to his home, Grandfather was angry with them for coming and berated them through the talking tube. But the girl explained everything she's learned and, inside the house, the caretaker realized that they may need her insight, so the grandfather agreed to open the door and let them in. But when he did, everyone was shocked to see that, although he had the same face, her grandfather now had a hideous deformed and mutated body, as though the bodies of several insects had been conflated and enlarged a thousand times.
Grandfather explained that he hadn't lied about one thing, he had died. But when he passed away, some unusual things had happened. First, instead of going to wherever it ought have, his soul returned to his island and leaped into a robotic double that he had made for himself decades ago. Moreover, during this transmigration, the character of his soul itself had changed. As a result, his new body had changed itself into its present form.
At the end of this explanation, the family was gathered in the inner sanctum. Television screens showed strange changes and destruction occurring all over the island. The caretaker was surrounded by old plot lines and story ideas, searching for a clue as to what would happen next. The girl began explaining what she thought was happening, when the caretaker suddenly looked up. "I'm coming back," he said. Somewhere, the live version of the caretaker had just died, and now the robot could feel that soul seeking out its doppelganger. Grandfather asked him to leave while the change happened. The caretaker went outside and was hit by what seemed to be a meteorite.
Then I woke up.
After writing out my dreams, it occurs to me that, although the more boring, the first one is much happier.
But before my dream, there was another dream, courtesy of Joss Whedon.
"Restless" was rerun on Fox today, and I had forgotten how brilliant it was. Dream sequences are a part of our general understanding of how stories are told. A scene occurs that seems incongruous, and we discover that it was a dream. A critical piece of information cannot be found, and it is discovered in a dream. Someone gets hit on the head with a coconut, and suddenly all of one's friends are playing roles in whatever was last seen.
But of all of the dreams that I've ever seen portrayed in on page, stage or screen, none of them have ever looked at all like my dreams except for this episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What always sends chills down my spine when I watch it is the brilliant way that Whedon describes nonlinear geography, something that always happens in my dreams. (Example: Xander walks out of his basement and is in a park, where he sees himself in an ice cream truck across the street. Suddenly he is the one in the ice cream truck and he's driving. He climbs into the back of the truck, squeezes above the freezers, and crawls out a grate leading into, the basement where he started. In the same way, Willow gets lost in a seemingly short stretch of curtain.) That's what it's like moving around in my dreams.
Beyond that, the dialogue is alternately hilarious and bizarre. ("Sometimes I think about two women doing a spell... and then I do a spell by myself.") And although I can't pin it onto anything specific, I know that I've heard lines very similar to the ones performed in the rather unusual version of Death of a Salesman.
Finally, the vignettes really cut to the hearts of the characters to a degree that rarely gets explored at any other time. It almost makes me want to watch season six. Almost.
My memory of my dream picks up (I think) about 33% into it. This isn't too important since there were major character and plot changes after this. I was at Disneyland, or a place with a similar theme-park resonance, and I was feeling very lonely, so I left my friends a little after sunset to go back to my hotel room and...ahem...cast some spells by myself. But as I'm walking out of the gate (getting my hand stamped just in case), I see my girlfriend. (I don't recall if she was anyone who I know in real life, but I knew she was my girlfriend. In fact, she was my girlfriend of several years with whom I was considering marriage.) She wasn't supposed to have been able to make it to this trip, to my great sadness, but through some behind-the-scenes dream contrivance, she was here now. We embraced, and she locked onto my arm and pulled me back into the park with a few hours of fun till the park closed, followed by a romantic Monorail ride back to our room.
At some point during our time in the park, the setting of the dream changed from Disneyland to a secluded island, and the main character changed from me to a teenage girl. Also, the time shifted to the future. See, the girl was living with her mother on the island where her grandfather had experimented with robotics and artificial intelligence. The result was a cross between the North Pole and Tron, where the AI of the various creations interacted and merged to create a fantastical setting that was always changing.
It was clear, though, that things were changing in ways that were not expected. The girl's five-year-old brother was becoming obsessed with "fly people," creatures with the bodies and clothing of a five-year-old boys, but having oversized alien heads. These fly people would "attack" the island in waves, although it wasn't clear what they wanted.
Following a trail of anagrams in a local library, our heroine learned some interesting things. In addition to being a brilliant inventor and technician, her grandfather was also a prolific writer of pulp novels. Further, his partner in these ventures of science and fiction was the same man who was the caretaker of the island. They had written about many of the peaceful citizens of the island, but they had also written about the strange and dangerous beings that had only recently begun to appear. She took this information to her mother, who become so upset that she told the heroine a great secret. Her grandfather was living on the island, but didn't want to be seen. Suddenly, her brother rushed into the room wearing a fly-person mask which he couldn't remove, followed immediately by a swarm of fly people. The girl and her mother dragged the young boy to safety and finally removed the mask from him, but he was unconscious. Mother decided that she must finally take her daughter to meet her grandfather.
Meanwhile, the caretaker, who also had been the grandfather's partner, made a secret visit to the grandfather's house. Speaking through a ten-foot-long tube through rock, the caretaker explained that too much had gone wrong for him to handle or understand, and that he needed help. Grandfather scolded him. "You have more processing power than the rest of the island combined," he said, "and access to far more information than I could reach." "But," the caretaker argues, "I do not have the vision any more." Ultimately, the grandfather let him in.
The family made a long and harrowing trek across the island, harassed by fly people and other strange and new menaces that the girl had seen in her grandfather's novels. When they finally reached the entrance to his home, Grandfather was angry with them for coming and berated them through the talking tube. But the girl explained everything she's learned and, inside the house, the caretaker realized that they may need her insight, so the grandfather agreed to open the door and let them in. But when he did, everyone was shocked to see that, although he had the same face, her grandfather now had a hideous deformed and mutated body, as though the bodies of several insects had been conflated and enlarged a thousand times.
Grandfather explained that he hadn't lied about one thing, he had died. But when he passed away, some unusual things had happened. First, instead of going to wherever it ought have, his soul returned to his island and leaped into a robotic double that he had made for himself decades ago. Moreover, during this transmigration, the character of his soul itself had changed. As a result, his new body had changed itself into its present form.
At the end of this explanation, the family was gathered in the inner sanctum. Television screens showed strange changes and destruction occurring all over the island. The caretaker was surrounded by old plot lines and story ideas, searching for a clue as to what would happen next. The girl began explaining what she thought was happening, when the caretaker suddenly looked up. "I'm coming back," he said. Somewhere, the live version of the caretaker had just died, and now the robot could feel that soul seeking out its doppelganger. Grandfather asked him to leave while the change happened. The caretaker went outside and was hit by what seemed to be a meteorite.
Then I woke up.
After writing out my dreams, it occurs to me that, although the more boring, the first one is much happier.