Intro: Dream
It is light.
It is dark.
It is light again.
It is very dark.
Dusk settles - something like dusk - a queasy, night vision green, stamped with a throbbing amber moon.
It is my backyard, but it isn’t. Josh is there and Ben and Ryan, but he’s very young, and then not Josh, and me, and Tony, and Brian Lauers, from high school, and Jake, and then Josh.
They are golfing, and then not Josh, hitting balls, and it is light, silent, and I am watching, and it is dark, and I am not me, but I am watching me, and then Josh.
And there are pigs in the yard - first the impression of pigs, followed by pulsing pig representations - and it is yellow dusk, and the pulsing pig representations are too big, and then Josh, and there is a baby that is not mine, that I need to take care of, that looks like me, and then not Josh, and then Josh, and then not Ben, and Josh is going into the neighbor’s house to take a piss and they aren’t home but the lights are on and I am furious, and then not Josh, and the pulsing pig representations are again just the impressions of pigs and they are many, and the pigs are in danger, I can feel it, and then Josh, and it is light, and the pigs are pigs now - tangible pigs - and have green eyes, and then Ben, and then not Josh, and Marshall is in the house, and I am in the house, and Josh is in the house, and then not Josh, and Kelly wafts through, blinking her eyes wildly, and it is very bright, and then Josh - and where is the baby? - and then not Josh, and I can hear an uncle in the other room, and it is very bright, and then Josh and Ben and Marshall and Tony and my brother and me and a pig and the baby and then not Josh and this doesn’t make sense, I realize this doesn’t make sense, and I realize I’m dreaming and then it is light and everything slows down, comes into focus. Everything is focused and still. Lucid.
The house is mine and I am lucid.
I am dreaming. I say this aloud and the words pulse through the air in concentric circles. I am in my kitchen. Everything is there. It is my kitchen, but more - ethereal, maybe. And Josh and Ben and Tony and Ryan and Jake and Marshall and Brian Lauers and the green eyed pig are just standing still, staring at me, waiting for me to do something. So I put a hat on the pig, with my mind. A beautiful deep brown bowler. Everyone smiles.
I breath. This is my dream and I can do literally anything I want. The laws of physics and morality do not apply to me. I could fly through the air like a crow. I could make Josh do things to the pig. I could combine Josh with the pig to make a pig-Josh and have Ben do things with pig-Josh. I could punch pig-Josh into a billion smaller pigs with spaghetti knuckles. I don’t know what that means, exactly, but I could do it. I could make them all perform an elaborate three part very special episode of Charles In Charge, where the pig plays Charles and Tony plays Buddy, and Buddy is experimenting with PCP, and Charles has to help him and hide it from the kids. It could be brilliant and disgusting. And I could play Mr. Belvedere, hell, I could be Mr. Belvedere, even though he’s not even in Charles In Charge. I could make Mr. Belvedere a member of the Charles in charge universe with my mind. Anything. This world, as they say, is my oyster. I could literally make this world into an oyster.
Instead, I retreat to my studio to record - this - podcast . . .
Part I: Lucid DreamingIn 1902, Willis Carrier recorded a remarkable dream in his dream journal. Two dream descriptions in a row might be a bit much, but bare with me.
July 16th, 1902
Dearest diary,
Last night I dreamt the most remarkable dream. To call it a dream, in fact, does it no justice. It was more than a dream, I believe. Vision may be the word. Revelation, perhaps.