DM Blog

A couple nights ago I had this ridiculously funny dream, so funny that there was absolutely no way I was going to forget it. I woke up laughing and as I lay in bed trying to fall back asleep, I had to try really hard to not burst out laughing. I probably would have laughed myself to tears if I wasn’t so worried about waking up Michelle in the middle of the night…

It turns out Michelle was only half-asleep and when she woke up to go to work, she told me that she thought she heard me laughing in the middle of the night. Indeed, as I lay there trying to fall back asleep, there were a couple laughs that escaped me – it was way too hard to keep them all inside. Even hours later as I described my dream to Michelle, I still found it hard to contain my laughter – and she had quite the laugh about it too.

I’m going to do my best to recount my dream to you, but I get the feeling it might be one of those "you had to be there" types of stories, or at least you’d have to know Michelle a little bit. (Yes, the dream was about her.) Hopefully it will still be funny though. But before I get into the story, some background on dreams…

Whenever I have a dream that I don’t understand, or see something in a dream that I think is some sort of a sign, I look it up on the Dream Moods dictionary to see what it has to say. More than a couple times, I’ve been certain that my dream was too unique and that I wouldn’t find an explanation for a certain symbol, but sure enough, there it is. it’s proved to be a pretty good resource. In this case, I saw myself in my dream literally rolling on the floor, laughing so hard that I was in tears, so I thought to look up "laughter":

Laughing

To hear laughing or dream that you are laughing suggests that you need to lighten up and let go of your problems. don’t put so much pressure on yourself. Laughing is also a sign of joyous release and pleasure. If you are being laughed at, then it indicates your insecurities and fears of not being accepted.

To hear evil, demonic laughing in your dream represents feelings of humiliation and/or helplessness. You feel that someone is working against you.

Interesting. I probably could lighten up a little sometimes… In fact, it reminds me of the very first Valentines Day that Michelle and I spent together:

We had just recently moved into our first place together (at Bathurst & St. Clair) and I came home from work a little later than usual that night, tired and hungry. Michelle was already home and I can’t remember why she hadn’t started dinner, but I knew I could make some pasta really quick so that we could get on with the rest of our evening. I was super hungry and not in the greatest mood, but Michelle was still more than happy to be my assistant in the kitchen. I used the last bit of black pepper that was in the mill, so I asked Michelle to refill it while I carried on with finishing the sauce. Once I had combined the sauce with the pasta and dinner was ready to be served, I took one last taste to make sure it didn’t need more salt, pepper, or anything else. I asked Michelle to hand me the black pepper and wondered what she did to the mill that the pepper was so hard to crack, but I was too hungry to care. When we sat down for dinner, I found the pasta really gross and hard to eat, but why, if it was fine just moments earlier? Being Michelle’s first time in her life ever filling a pepper mill, she accidentally filled it with whole allspice instead of black peppercorns. Oops! I was so tired and hungry that it almost seemed like intentional sabotage on her part and I got really upset. But now years later, I laugh about it whenever I remember. I probably could have lightened up a little back then – it was after all her very first time ever filling a pepper mill…

So over the years, I’ve gotten very used to coming across things that are so common and normal to me, but turn out to be new experiences, or firsts for Michelle. it’s not her fault that she grew up isolated from the real world and deprived of a normal upbringing.

Which brings me to my dream…

…I was sitting in the living room of our house in Calgary (in Sunnyside) that had a very large west-facing window. My mom, (who lived with us in that house) was there, Michelle was there, and our living room was full with a bunch of women casually chatting over a glass of wine. The blinds were up and the sunshine was filling the living room, but then the sun gradually started to set.

Michelle was sitting across from my mother and I, and right beside an electrical outlet with two floor lamps plugged in. Not wanting to be rude by interrupting the conversation, we both looked over at Michelle trying to subtly signal for her to turn on the lamps before the room got completely dark. The sun was setting, but Michelle seemed completely oblivious, and for some reason she wouldn’t turn the lamps on.

It finally became too dark in the room for conversation to comfortably continue, so one of the ladies suggested to Michelle that she should turn the lamps on now that the sun was setting. Michelle explained that she had checked both lamps to make sure that they were plugged in, but that we’d have to find an alternate light source because the bulbs needed to be changed. When I asked Michelle, Why not just change the bulbs?, she confessed that she didn’t know how…

In real life, that would probably be funny enough, but this wasn’t real life, it was a dream.

So if Michelle wasn’t embarrassed enough, my mom (who’s always eager to help) loudly exclaimed, "What!? You don’t know how to change a lightbulb? I’ll show you how, it’s so easy!" So with all eyes now on Michelle, she brought the two floor lamps across the living room and placed them in front of my mom.

My mom proceeded to show Michelle just how simple it was to unscrew the old lightbulb and replace it with a new one. Being a brand new experience for Michelle, she was excited to try it for herself, so she grabbed the second floor lamp, took out the old bulb and screwed in a new one, while my mom toggled the switch on hers to turn the light on. In what seemed like no time at all, there was now light in the room. Nice.

Michelle was looking at my mom’s bright light in awe as if she had just performed a miracle, and in my dream I could sense that she was feeling pressure to deliver the same results – all eyes were still on her after all.

And then before I knew it, there was Michelle putting the final touch and lighting the bulb with a match.

I guess she wasn’t paying very close attention to my mom’s instructions, and for some absurd reason, she was sure that you had to light the bulb with a match for it to work. She didn’t notice that my mom had toggled a switch on the lamp to turn it on.

The image of a campfire marshmallow on fire flashed through my mind as I watched Michelle’s face turn from being dumfounded as to why her bulb didn’t light up like my mom’s, to a look of amazement and wonder as her bulb was quickly consumed by flames. It was almost as though she was proud of herself! …Oh!

In my dream, there was a small part of me that felt embarrassed for her, having so many eyes witness this comedic spectacle, but nevertheless, I was quickly consumed by laughter to the point that I was rolling on the floor, laughing so hard that I was in tears, while wondering, Why would she think that she had to light it with a match!?

I went from watching myself in my dream – laughing hysterically on the floor as Michelle still stood there with her eyes and mouth wide open, in complete awe with her flamed light bulb – to waking up laughing uncontrollably. Just like waking from a nightmare, I knew it was just a dream and not at all real, but the images from the dream left such an impression that there was no way I was going to forget it anytime soon!

Hopefully I’ve done my dream justice and made you laugh… Or maybe you had to be there?

Why do dreams like this happen? As bizarre and foolish as this dream was though, the absurd idea of lighting a light bulb with a match was a creation of my imagination, not Michelle’s…

And on the subject of weird dreams, the other night I had a dream where I was playing rock music at a big house party, jumping up and down and banging my head to the music… I was playing songs I’ve never played before in my life, (but have heard on the radio a couple times), just playing by ear and following the guitar player’s lead. I’ve had dreams like this a couple times actually, where I’m playing by ear songs that I’ve never played before and heard only a handful of times. And every time, I see my hands move around on the fretboard and it’s the chord progressions that I remember when I wake up…

What’s weird though, (apart from the fact that I’m jumping up and down and banging my head to the music), is that whenever I get up from bed and think to go check the chord progressions to see if they’re right, I’m dead-on every time. it’s as if I’m learning to play these songs in my sleep! Weird.