Last month, as usual, I remembered dozens of dreams, which guest starred Don Draper, Neil Gaiman, Raylan Givens, Captain Marvel, Danny Kaye, Tom Disch and many others.<\/p>\n
Let’s see what we can learn by having them rub up against each other in one place, shall we?<\/p>\n
MAY 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n I dreamt I was in a story conference and disappointed a studio exec — Seinfeld<\/em>‘s Mr. Bookman — because I didn’t know enough cop slang. 30 May<\/i><\/p>\n I lost a dream because I have no idea what last night’s scribbled middle-of-the-night note means: PERFORMANCE ART NOT ACCEPTED BY FANDOM 30 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt the phone rang, and it was for @neilhimself<\/a>, who was suddenly there. Someone wanted to discuss a writer’s suicide. Not sure whose. 29 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was in a donut shop, and the owner tried to fill a box in front of me, but couldn’t. As a new donut was placed there, I’d eat it! 29 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt my sister-in-law badgered my wife with basic Internet questions, like how to recover a Yahoo password, and my wife grew annoyed. 28 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I walked through a bar in the UK with a ukulele and was asked to play something, but was afraid I wouldn’t pull off my Formby solo. 28 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt Irene showed me a copy of MAD<\/em> in which an old comic story of mine had been reprinted, and I grumbled about not having been paid. 27 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I saw @MaryRobinette<\/a> at Worldcon, in full Regency garb, marking up a Hugo ballot, as if voting and ceremony happened the same day. 27 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was being driven home on snowy country roads, wondering whether I’d get there, when the driver received word the bridge was out. 27 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was trying to get home pushing a shopping cart and somehow got trapped on skateboard ramps, going round and round, up and down. 25 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was a black marketeer who just discovered an underling was skimming some of my profits. It would not end well for him. 25 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was arrested for carrying a gun on the Mall (something I’d never do in real life) and was led away by a trained German Shepherd. 25 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was Person of Interest<\/em>‘s John Reese, picking up a glass of champagne as I arrived at a party and starting to scope out the scene. 23 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was Don Draper, and after a guy near me on a NYC street was shot, I picked up my son from school and drove around, melancholy. 23 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was a female police officer reviewing my notes before testifying about a case in which I found a body buried in a backyard. 23 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt a friend vanished, and we all thought he was dead. But then he showed up at the funeral driving a magic bus and took us for a ride. 22 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was in a band with Californication<\/em>‘s Atticus and tried to get him to stop doing something really stupid. But don’t remember what. 22 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt a switcheroo — instead of dining at @NextRestaurant<\/a>, I was a server there — but when I entered the kitchen, I became confused. 22 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I watched Beasts of the Southern Wild<\/em>, a film I’ve never seen … so I’m sure my dream version was nothing like the real thing! 21 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was a demon, found a promissory note from thousands of years ago and, thinking of compounding, decided it was time to collect. 21 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was Raylan Givens, and my superiors were hassling me for having hung out with unsavory characters and not reporting it to them. 21 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I stood atop a tower in Antarctica wrapped in a parka in an attempt to win a competition. The view was amazing, but I was COLD! 21 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I drove through Brooklyn and saw a guy with a banjolele, so I joined him. But no matter how hard I thrashed, my uke made no sound. 21 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt Irene and I played with one of those remote controlled toy submarines, only after it submerged, we could never get it to resurface. 20 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt a neighbor woke me in the middle of the night by clambering on the roof to steal electricity for his massive nativity scene. 20 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I ran late to the Hugo Awards, but a friend had saved me a seat, which had me right in front of Steve Saffel, blocking his view. 19 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I taught a creative writing class and threatened to quit when an administrator demanded all students undergo background checks. 19 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt aliens invaded, but then, as I looked in the mirror, I turned into Captain Marvel — the Shazam one — and was able to deal with it. 18 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I contacted @JoeQuesada<\/a> to ask for another shot at writing comics again after decades away … but woke before anything came of it. 16 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was Danny Kaye, entertaining with schtick, which seemed to involve lots of climbing on chairs and hitting my head on the ceiling. 16 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt my mother (played in this dream by the mother from Arrow<\/em>) was in tears because she thought I was about to tell her I’d enlisted. 16 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was backstage with Jason Sudeikis while Saturday Night Live<\/em> aired, both of us waiting for our cue to enter a scene. 16 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I wandered Coney Island with my old pal Allan. We ate pretzels and chili dogs, and wanted to (but never got to) ride the Cyclone.16 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I saw Tom Disch. When I asked him why he wasn’t still dead, he said, “I’ve missed Jonathan. I’ve missed him.” But who’s Jonathan? 15 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I wandered West 8th St., which was packed with bookstalls, and bought a present for my daughter, who was Californication<\/em>‘s Becca. 14 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was squeezed in an elevator that lurched and stopped. As others screamed, I thought, “If I had my uke, I could calm them down.” 14 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt my mother-in -law and aunt-in-law were alive again and puttering in the kitchen, and no matter how we asked, they wouldn’t rest. 13 May<\/i><\/p>\n I only remember fragments from the rest of the night’s dreams, with no context — @scalzi<\/a>, horses, a wrist tattoo. Shards from three dreams. 9 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was in a cab with @shunn<\/a> and @chavoen<\/a>, late at night, somber as we return home from a funeral. I no longer remember whose. 9 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt my Dad, alive and dark-haired, was about to perform in a play as the narrator, carrying a huge Book of Life, and I wished him luck. 9 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt The Mentalist<\/em>‘s Patrick Jane spread out stones on a beach to unravel clues. The Matrix<\/em>‘s Agent Smith and I teamed up to help him. 8 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I watched from my office cubicle as Seinfeld<\/em>‘s Costanza flirted clumsily with Lilith from Cheers<\/em>. His attempts only bemused her. 8 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt that Dexter and I had done something nefarious (I no longer remember what) and were trying to keep news of the event from a child. 8 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I wandered barefoot on a Brooklyn street — Kings Highway? Avenue P? — looking for food, and was worried I’d cut my feet. 7 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was in a new TV show with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and we were in the writers room improvising our characters’ histories. 7 May<\/i><\/p>\n I remember no full dreams from last night, only shards: shoe ads, Simon Cowell, fortune cookies, movie tickets, driving to a uke jam. 6 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I stood in a field with an old foreign man, attempting to communicate, even though neither of us understood the other’s language. 3 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I made a music video with the folks from the Daily Show<\/em>, filled with lots of manic confusion, as if we were like The Monkees. 3 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I worked at a bank where every cubicle was filled with so many comics they might as well have been dealers tables at a comics con. 3 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was a woman, and when my husband was attacked, I smashed a car and used a glass windshield shard to slash his attacker’s throat. 3 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was skimming MAD<\/em> magazine’s spoof of Never on Sunday when Paul Newman — as drawn by Mort Drucker — walked by and took a peek. 2 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt I was Spider-Man, and Doc Ock set off a bomb not to destroy, but as a ploy to get my fingerprints and track down my real identity. 1 May<\/i><\/p>\n I dreamt that as I wandered a post-apocalypse, a copy of the NY Times<\/em> logo fluttered by, and I decided — I would start publishing it again. 1 May<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last month, as usual, I remembered dozens of dreams, which guest starred Don Draper, Neil Gaiman, Raylan Givens, Captain Marvel, Danny Kaye, Tom Disch and many others. Let’s see what we can learn by having them rub up against each other in one place, shall we? MAY 2013 I dreamt I was in a story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-10487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dreams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}