Thomas Wictor

Now I’m dreaming that I’m lying in bed, unable to sleep. Easily the stupidest dreams a person could have.

Dreams are supposed to restore you. If you’re kept from dreaming, you go crazy. If you dream that you’re not dreaming, is that the same as not dreaming?

Am I now dreaming myself to a higher level of insanity?

My book Hallucinabulia: the Dream Diary of an Unintended Solitarian will be available soon. I’ve structured it in a way that prevents self-indulgent meandering. I also edited some of the dreams. The imagery would distract from the broader intent, and you wouldn’t want to read stuff like that anyway.

My mother rarely remembered her dreams. She told me of three, which are not only not stupid, I find them fascinating.

When she was in college, she dreamed that a train crashed into her dorm room and blew up all over the wall without hurting her. The next morning, her roommate told Mom that she’d sat up in bed and called, “Look! Parts of trains on the wall!”

In another dream Mom met a Native American shamaness named Whiskey January.

(I found an album titled Whiskey January by the Finches. It’s incredibly infectious music. Have a listen.)

And in the third dream, Mom woke to see the disembodied head of her son-in-law Robert beside her in the dark.

“What are you doing here, Robert?” she asked.

He smiled, puffed out his cheeks, and blew in her face. She said he was like one of those old illustrations of the wind.

Then she woke up.

Dreams unnerved Mom. I don’t know why. It may have been the loss of control. Someday I hope they invent a way of recording my dreams. I could watch them all day.

Except for the ones in which I’m lying sleepless in bed.

This is one of the greatest songs ever written. I used to be able to play the bass line flawlessly.