Bumper Cars and Stuff

I love dreams. My dreams are often rich tapestries blending the real with the surreal, and I always mix and match places and activities to the point that waking up in the morning is always boring, because reality can never compare. As far as I know, I've never had a recurring dream, nor have I ever been able to revisit my subconscious creations once I've been rudely awakened.

My dad doesn't often speak of his dreams, while my mom tends to have bizarre ones like mine, that blend things in her subconscious like dead relatives, cats, and horticulture. I blend urban surroundings with adventures, occasionally with a comic book twist. The other night, my dad started mumbling in his sleep and shouting, “Getout! Getouttahere! Don't come in!” I immediately leapt up and rushed in.

“Your father's just dreaming,” said my mom calmly, watching television. “Someone was comin' in the window,” my dad muttered, getting up and shuffling in to the bathroom for the first of many visits, a routine most men have to “look forward to.” My dad doesn't often dream, or remember them, but the two or three times he's had such an outburst, it was either about someone climbing in a window or someone coming in our driveway or yard that didn't belong there. I don't know if he was robbed as a kid, or is developing an old man's wariness of the grim reaper, or what that's about. The day one of my dreams recurs is the day I start examining them more closely.

Wednesday morning before I woke up, I think I was on a date, though my companion is fuzzy. I do remember riding in bumper cars, which was fun, and riding them down the ramp from the Verrazano bridge into oncoming traffic, which was terrifying. They were rentals, so I had to return them. I put them under my arms, because they were smaller than sleds, and went to the ticket booth.

I was told that the booth was for rentals, not returns, and I was on the wrong side. I walked down the street, a deserted industrial area, in the middle of which sat my uncle's house, which in real life has since been sold. I walked in to the living room where my family was having a tag sale, and noted how there was very little left. My mom pointed out that my bumper cars were melting and getting the rug wet, so I quickly left to find that return counter before they were gone completely.

I made my way past fountains and potted plants, into a large atrium that looked like a mall in Washington D.C. My eagle eyes spotted the return counter at the far end of the plaza, while a fun house entrance shrouded in black summoned me. I lingered too long trying to decide whether to get my deposit back or go in the fun house, and found that my bumper cars were now gone.

And then I woke up.

My dreams don't often make sense, but they're more interesting than my day. Imagine a post about sitting in a cubicle, or what DVD I watched, or what was on television. Perhaps I could regale you with tales of pasta and pussycats, or how on a side road coming home I was behind a really slow moving bus, took a detour down another side street, and got back to the road I needed to be on just as the bus drove past, which means I drove around to end up behind the bus once again.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm dreaming when I'm awake, and how I would really know. Is Frank Castle the new Cap? Is Steven Colbert? Sometimes the difference between dreaming and waking is merely the difference between Lily White's Party and Lily White's After Party.