I was riding shotgun in a Model T, driving up the Catalina Mountains near Tucson. There was a beautiful woman driving, and two doctors in the back seat. It was getting dark, and I was impressed with how well the driver navigated the car (lots of pulleys and switches) while driving up the dimly lit switchback road. Zappa was playing on the radio, and the driver was telling us how she was more of a Beefheart person. The doctors in back were hungry and wanted to stop at a restaurant in Summerhaven.

Not a very exciting dream, but I’ve been dreaming wildly lately, and I wanted to kick off a dream thread.

I frequently have dreams where I'm going to miss a flight, or that I'm flying that day and haven't bought a ticket yet, or that I've lost my passport.

My most terrifying dream involves being onstage with major equipment failure. One of my cables is shorting out, there's no power to my effects, the amp won't stop feeding back, etc. The band and audience are all staring and waiting for me to get my shit together so we can start the next song ...

Anyway, I usually don't remember my dreams with much clarity but this one was especially vivid.


I had won a contest. Not only did the six lucky winners receive a free ticket to Bruce Springsteen's concert in Tucson, we each got a ride to the venue from The Boss himself.

Bruce picked me up in a passenger van with two other winners, both guys, already inside. I sat in the back. We were all stoked. Bruce was friendly, joking and laughing with us as he drove. I asked him some fanboy questions which he answered with good humor.

The next winners we picked up were two college-aged punkette girls with green and purple hair. They were kind of aloof, but Bruce was real nice to them and soon they were stoked too.

We all stood on a bridge looking down at the ground far below. Bruce swan-dived off the bridge. We were terrified. It looked like he was going to go splat but at the last moment, a metal Inspector Gadget arm shot out of Bruce's right sleeve with some kind of suction cup at the end. It was the same kind of pole they use for stop signs, green with holes in it.

Bruce used the metal arm to bounce off the ground. Our relief turned into awe as Bruce did a somersault mid-air. Then a substance that looked like ketchup and mustard sprayed out of Bruce's left sleeve. He wrote "Bruce Loves Tucson" in huge letters on the ground as we cheered.

Bruce bounced up again, but on his next descent something went wrong and he crashed into the dirt. We thought he was dead, but a bunch of Bruce's people ran to him and helped him to his feet. He dusted himself off and waved to us, like "I'm OK."

We were in the hospital waiting room when Bruce came out. He limped a little but otherwise he looked just fine. Someone asked if he was still going to play the concert tonight and Bruce said, "Oh yeah, can't let you guys down!"

We pulled up outside a tall hotel to pick up the last winner. There were several clumps of homeless people living on the big driveway outside the hotel lobby. We stopped in front of two little homeless kids, boy and girl, aged about five and three. Their mother, a petite lady with short hair, ran up to the van, excitedly waving her free ticket and squealing Bruce's name.

When the two little kids realized their mother was going to leave them, they started crying. Bruce got out of the drivers seat and conferred with his people. Two guys from his entourage stayed with the kids while their mother got in the van with us. The kids and the mom were fine with this arrangement.

We stood on a bridge like before, but the ground was much further away. Bruce repeated his stunt. He dove off the bridge, sprang back up on the Inspector Gadget arm, did a somersault mid-air, and wrote on the ground with the ketchup and mustard. This time, he only got about halfway through the words when he crashed to the dirt, hard. His people ran toward him but Bruce didn't move. The ketchup and mustard pooled out under his broken body like blood.

Again, we were in the hospital waiting room when Bruce came out. He looked really bad. He could barely walk, he had bandages around half his body, and his face was horribly scarred. We gathered around him. He grinned weakly and assured us he was still going to play the concert.

As we left the hospital, I glanced up and saw the freeway overpass that the city was building on 4th Avenue. It looked like the front cover of The Captain And Me by the Doobie Brothers.

I've had many dreams about discovering previously unknown parts of my house. It's such a perfectly uncanny feeling. I've read about it in Jung's work, written a song about it and noticed the motif in books (Coraline, House of Leaves).

I think the idea is your dream house is a clear metaphor for your psyche. When you find a room you're unearthing something. It feels potent to me and I don't usually go in for that early 20th century psychoanalysis clap trap.

jason from volo wrote: Sat Nov 06, 2021 9:10 pm

tonyballzee wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 1:45 pm My most terrifying dream involves being onstage with major equipment failure.

So…

I like this.

And it doesn’t seem *that* terrifying.

But I wanna know more about what happened to the punkette girls and the Doobie Brothers link!!

I guess it's not that terrifying, just very frustrating. I had that dream repetitively for years, or some version of it where I'm trying to do something and everyone is staring and waiting for me to do the thing and I just ... can't ... seem ... to ... make ... it ... happen. Screwing up onstage used to be a big fear of mine. Now I don't give a shit.

After waking up from the Bruce dream and writing it down I remembered two of its roots. That week I had watched the Scorsese documentary about Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour which had shots of Dylan driving the tour bus. Also I had made a joke about having Inspector Gadget arms to someone at work.

Still waiting for part 2. Come on, subconscious!

Last night I had an entire dream about crapping with other people in the room. Nobody took note of me, they just walked around talking to each other. I was still uncomfortable.

Top thread - about to go to sleep so I’ll see what I can do

I'm at a U2 concert, my seat is in the back. Somehow, I make my way down to the floor and stand in the back. Their set is fairly short, they do a version of 'Beautiful Day' different from the normal version. They come out for an encore and do a cover of Duran Duran's 'Rio', and I'm like, "what the fuck?" The guys from Insane Clown Posse are on stage singing it with them. After that, the lights go out and the band comes back to where I'm standing on the floor. I'm too starstruck to say anything. Then, snow starts falling. The band goes back to the stage to play 'With Or Without You' while the snow falls. Afterwards, I think, "that's a good idea with the snow, except for the fact that people will slip and fall while trying to leave."

I've had a few dreams take place at U2 concerts for whatever reason.

Awake - In my dream I found a new art-book/cafe near our new home, which sold amazing blueberry slice and dark chocolate slice. They were like shallow cakes. I had a piece of the blueberry with a side of the chocolate. The bitterness of the latter complemented the sweetness of the former.

Oddly, although the bookstore/cafe was in Darlinghurst, it was also in Chatswood - a neighbourhood on the North Shore where I used to skate. I can even pick the street. But it was inner city Darlinghurst at the same time.

Anyhow, now I want cake like the cake of my dreams. The only place I know that does anything like it is Satellite, a great little cafe in Newtown. I do not have the time to go there today. The injustice is real.