RoboJack

I've never been able to discern precisely what it is about the change in the seasons that causes my dreams to be more vivid and bizarre. Knowing my mind as well as I do, I'm sure they're all bizarre, but it seems like the ones I remember are often at the beginning of September or late in December, and occasionally in March. September dreams make sense, since most of my life I was conditioned for a major change to take place once Summer vacation ended, and anxiety dreams about not having my homework done or being prepared for a test lasted well into my 20s, tapering off after I hit 30. My mom often has dreams like I do, with dead relatives or people we haven't seen in years intermingling in combinations of locations. My dad, to my knowledge, only has one recurring dream in which some stranger is in our driveway, and he's yelling at the guy to leave. We know because when he has this dream, he'll suddenly shout out loud, “GET OUT OF HERE!! GET OUT!!” and punch the wall behind the bed. Sometimes he wakes himself up, while other times he sleeps through it. This has been happening on and off about four or five times a year, for the past ten years. I don't know why.

The other day I had a real doozy. I woke up (in the dream) to find my mom frying up bacon in the kitchen. I looked outside and saw a van with the windows tinted, and a drunken Meredith from The Office stumbling around. I wasn't going out there. My mom went out to guide her oldest brother, my Uncle Ciro, who was single-handedly lugging an engine from the trunk of one car, to put under the hood of his own. HIs knees were buckling and he was walking low and wide, but still doing good for a man in his early 80s. I would have gone outside, but I had no idea where my pants were, so I was keeping my distance from the windows, yet maintaining that omniscience we have in dreams about our surroundings. Suddenly I was at my local beach at sunset, but the terrain had changed, and the water was flowing sideways. This morphed into a roped off New York City street, and I was drinking a beer and staying warm while I waited for the outdoor karaoke festival to begin. Then I woke up.

So yesterday, I had the weird dream. I was driving around in vehicular mode with my brother, Cliffjumper, which of course made me Bumblebee. That's right, I was a robot disguised as a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Do you see? Do you see the root of my problems, that even in my subconscious I'm a huge, huge nerd? We were being stealthy, scouting the perimeter of a trailer park, within which lurked evil Decepticons. Cliffjumper transformed, but in his robot mode he was now Powerglide. I guess I needed an Autobot who could fly and swapped out one red character for another one. No sooner did he soar up to the top of a trailer to scope things out, then he was fired upon by Seekers.

I hated to leave my comrade, but I was outnumbered and outgunned, and laser blasts were flying in my direction. I took off, driving through suburbs that looked suspiciously like the real world equivalent of Springfield. There was a West coast vibe as well, with palm trees, and I could sense a beach nearby. I pulled up to a strangely familiar building and went in to the second story apartment. I didn't transform, and I don't recall walking or driving up the steps alongside the building. I pulled in the driveway, and then I was in this familiar kitchen, and then I transformed.

I transformed into JackTripper.

As “Jack”, I didn't know who I was, but since I'm always simultaneously “watching” a dream from outside whatever role I've taken on, the me who was watching knew who the other me was. If you're confused, think how I felt. I'm not sure what the connection is between Three's Company and The Transformers. A kid I referred to as my best friend in elementary school had a similar haircut to Tripper, and could draw a VW Beetle really well. And John Ritter once played an android robot on a classic Buffy episode. In fact, despite looking human on the outside, I was pretty sure the Tripper/Ritter in my dream was still a robot on the inside. For one thing, his/my head was inches from the ceiling, conveniently near an old little television set on a high shelf which flipped on by itself and started playing the opening credits to Three's Company.

At this point, I sensed someone enter the room. They had sent her, the only one left, the only one who could keep me calm and help me make sense of it all. ”Janet?” I asked, pulling the name from some old data bank. But it was an older Joyce DeWitt who stepped from the shadows, because she was human and not a machine like I was, and she had aged. She explained how she stayed in the apartment after I'd left, how she never married unlike Chrissy and the other roommates. I think robot me/Jack was buying it, even though she was feeding me a massive cover story to hide the fact that the government had secretly hidden a perfect mechanical replica of a human being in plain sight on a popular sitcom.

The scene shifted, and I was back on the East coast, on the streets of Queens, and apparently myself again since “Janet” had been replaced by my old college crew. We were looking for a diner or some place to eat, and I couldn't tell if it was really late or really early. One of my friends lived in the area, and knew of a place, but my father would wake me up for work before I'd find out where we ended up. I'm wondering where my brain is going to take me the next time I fall asleep. I'm equally curious and terrified.

MCF dreams. Because my mind, is a terrible thing...