Special Music

Dream Description:
I am at the church I grew up in . . . except in the dream, the church is now having services at a huge baseball stadium rather than the church sanctuary.  This one woman from the church who DOES NOT play any musical instruments in real life is playing the piano.  At the end of the service, they give a Billy Graham-style altar call in which they say they need more people to do special music so you should come forward if you feel convicted to sing special music.

I feel really convicted, so I come forward and tell the piano lady that I will sing the following Sunday.  I don’t remember what song I chose to sing, but we have a rehearsal for it, and I am really flat in certain parts.  So I go to the practice rooms at Liberty University and ask Mrs. Snell if I can use a practice room even though I graduated.  She tells me that it costs 20 cents to use a practice room for an hour.  I am elated and gladly hand two dimes to the music monitor.

Then I am at The Burrow (the name for the basement apartment where three of my friends live) and my friends Stephanie and Asherah make fun of me for responding to an altar call and singing special music at my home church.  My friend Leah is there too, but she doesn’t make fun of me.

Suddenly, it is the morning of the church service.  My mom and I were going to drive together, but for some reason, she randomly starts having a baby.  I am really annoyed that she has to give birth before we can leave.  My mom is really annoyed too.  She doesn’t want to be late for church.

After the baby is born, we get in my car to leave, but everything in the car is backwards.  The steering wheel is facing the back windshield, so I back up just fine, but then I have to turn my head to go forward.  I know I won’t be able to drive that way to stadium church, so my mom and I steal a car that isn’t backwards and messed up.  We put the baby in a plastic yellow bag and it turns into a 2-year-old named Chelsea who can talk and walk.

Finally, we arrive at stadium church just as it is starting.  I make my way up to the front.  I am really upset that I won’t get anymore practice time with the piano lady, but I take my seat in the front and get ready my solo.  Then I woke up.


ANALYSIS:
The baseball stadium church represents the way in which the megachurch has corrupted America.  It represents how I feel confused and manipulated into singing stuff for churches where the music is lame.

The Billy Graham-style altar call represents a cognitive disorder I may have called Bearded Beardless Boxcar Belligerent Disorder—a disease that causes me to wish to be able to grow a beard in order to please other people.

The cheap price of the practice rooms represents the value of pop music being sung in church.

My interaction with Steph, Asherah, and Leah shows that subconsciously, I trust Leah to be respectful of my feelings more than I trust Stephanie or Asherah.  Or it might mean that I am afraid of what people think of me, but I don’t care what Leah thinks of me.  Or it might mean that I secretly want to be a duck.

My baby sister who doesn’t exist in real life represents how I really wanted my youngest brother to be a girl.  I don’t know why, but when I was five and my mom was pregnant with my youngest brother, I got really upset when I found out he was going to be a boy.  I wanted a little sister.  Apparently, I still do.

The car represents how backwards life can be when you are late for something.  Everything that can go wrong will go wrong—everything.  Your car will morph into a backwards freak of nature.

The plastic yellow bag represents education.

The stadium represents the Muppets.

The piano lady represents hope for the future.

Amen.

Leah's Dream

A guest dreamer, Leah Melfi, has requested I post and analyze a dream she had several months ago:

Dream Description:
I was doing one of my performances and a guy who had a crush on me was apparently filming me the whole time even though I had no idea.  He even got video of me in the dressing room.  Later, I had a dream within a dream about him.  I woke up in the regular dream to find him in my room with the video tape he recorded.  He played it for me and part of it was me talking to Matt Nabinger about how weird he is.  Then he asked me why I thought he was weird and all his teeth started falling out.  Then we were at a restaurant and he had me chained to a chair and my friends Matt and Stephanie came out of nowhere with saws and cut the chains.


ANALYSIS:
This is a textbook case of the Crushing Hermeneutical Blue Dahlia Syndrome Condition.  This is a very treatable pseudo-psychosomatic condition in which the victim believes the self-worth of others is dependant upon her perception of them.  Sometimes, the victim also craves blue cheese salad dressing.  The cure is to throw darts at pictures of celebrities in magazines like Cosmo, 17, and even People.

A dream within a dream!  That means Leah is a prime candidate for inception!

The video tape represents Leah’s desire to keep some aspects of her life private.

The guy’s teeth falling out represents him being ugly.

Me and Stephanie freeing Leah from the chains shows how in real life, we would save Leah from a creepy dude like that.