January 28, 2012

dreams

Originally published October 11, 2003

I dream vividly, in technicolor.

I dream about having wanton sex, I dream about snakes and I dream about being able to spread my arms and fly. I dream about showing up at work nekkid. (Being NEKKID doesn't bother me because I look damn good nekkid, and I've walked around with no clothes on many times in Key West. I am disturbed by that dream because I can't wear my safety equipment.) I dream about falling when I can't spread my arms and fly.

I've had a recurring dream for as far back as I can remember about falling from the rigging of an old sailing ship into a dark, angry, roiling sea. I started having that dream when I was a boy in Kentucky and the ocean was 500 miles away. I woke up screaming back then.

I've had that dream so often that it doesn't frighten me anymore. When I dream it now, I KNOW that I'm dreaming and I KNOW what's going to happen. I just kinda go along for the ride, then wake up when I hit the water. I simply think, "There it was again."

I had some new-age, crystal-gazer tell me that the dream was a glimpse at how I died once in a previous life. I think "The Highwayman" is a great song and I would LOVE to believe in reincarnation, but I don't. I believe that I simply have a vivid imagination and once, long ago, I saw something that triggered the image of an old sailing ship in a storm at night, with me falling from the rigging. I've dreamed about it ever since.

What the hell. Maybe she was right. Maybe I AM on my second or third or 500th go-around in life.

If so, I damn sure didn't learn much from my previous experience.