In the dream, I was Confused Spice

2/14/07

Indie rockers may recognize this splendid line from Doug Martsch: "No one wants to hear what you dreamt about unless you dreamt about them", a truism that has guided (and shortened) many of my "wow, what a dream I had" regalements. Yet the complete verse continues, "don't let that stop you, tell them anyway."

So sorry, but Doug said I could.

In Tuesday's dream, John Mellencamp sat on the set of some nondescript local news broadcast to promote his new book/CD American Tuba (which chronicled the history of the tuba in American music) interviewed by a hapless reporter who anxiously flipped through her index cards as if her probing questions about tubas had been replaced with instructions for baking lemon meringue pie. Mellencamp charmingly recounted the tuba's lineage from its classical roots to the dawn of big band jazz, into its heyday of Dixieland, and seeing the reporter's obvious panic, tried to to help by tactfully ending a comment on the tuba's role in Miles Davis' nonet with, "you're probably wondering if the tuba is appears in modern rock music?" But the reporter, lost in her frantic 3x5-card shuffling, failed to notice his assistance. Mellencamp glanced off camera, expecting to hear a frustrated "cut!" bellowed from the shadows, but the camera continued to capture the awkwardness, the bemused guest and the silent, frenzied host.

In Wednesday's dream, I didn't recall any dream, but awoke humming "Wannabe", the annoyingly catchy debut single from The Spice Girls. While I know this was once a ubiquitous sonic plague upon the world, I have only heard the song 3 or perhaps 4 times in my life. (At least in my waking life---I'm now left to wonder how many times I have sneaked away to dreamland to revel in its buoyancy.)

I've never bought into any broad concept of "dream interpretation"---sure, dreaming you're at the edge of a cliff likely indicates an anxiety in your everyday life, but the idea that, say, a dog has a particular meaning is absurd to me, since someone who grew up with loving and protective dogs is surely going to have a different impression of canines than the person whose father was mauled by Dobermans. Ditto on The Spice Girls, who have neither offered me any love and protection nor mauled my father.

I prefer to think of dreams as a sort of Community Theater for one, where each night a new play is performed (or a series of one-acts), and the audience member is provided no program, no hint at what story will appear on the stage. The material for these plays is taken from bits of information acquired during my waking day: The creep at the restaurant resembled my fourth grade teacher Mr. Murphy, so Mr. Murphy is cast as the villain; the hour spent combing the shelves at Powell's provides the library setting for one of the one-acts. An entire overnight of entertainment can be created by this method of data recycling.

But a book called American Tuba? Then me singing "Wannabe"? I'm left to ask, who hired the nutso avant garde director who has been handling this week's performances at my personal playhouse? I sit here with my coffee trying to wake from a stupor like the one I felt after watching Donnie Darko---what the heck did I just witness? Is there sense to be made of this, or have random bits of information been tossed in as red herrings? I'm curious to know why I dreamed of American Tuba, but I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want: I want to know why the hell I was singing that awful song.