I have some strange dreams, most people seem to. Except when I talk to people about them, my dreams seem to be at least a bit different. Mine are often complete stories, I mean sometimes I have ethereal dreams like this:
I go to bed, Katherine is to follow me up. Pete and her are downstairs watching tv. I fall asleep upstairs, Katherine falls asleep before making it up to bed. I’m woken by a knock at the door. It’s Pete carrying a still sleeping Katherine. He says, “she was talking in her sleep. I wrote down what she said, in case it was important, on her face”. And sure enough very delicately written on her face were several notes that I couldn’t make out.
That dream doesn’t really seem to have a point, which makes it like most dreams that people describe to me. But that’s a kind of rare dream for me. I normally dream in something approaching full stories or movie pitch ideas. For example the other night I dreamt this:
Emma Thomson is a giantess, she is around 12 foot tall. She is otherwise a normal person, this isn’t science fiction. Being so tall has taken its toll on her physically, society has taken its toll on her emotionally. She’s so self-conscious, the only time she goes outside is for her physiotherapy sessions. She spends time at home, online, where she falls in love with a man on the internet who now wants to meet her. She is worried, and is scared to let him see her. Meanwhile at her physiotherapy office, her doctor is retiring and is going to be replaced by Jim Carey. Emma isn’t sure but she thinks Jim actually likes her. When he asks her on a date she freaks out and has a panic attack but eventually allows him to take her out. When home she feels guilty – has she betrayed the internet guy?
Because of this feeling, she won’t let Jim take her out on another date. He finally persistently convinces her, he says that he has a surprise. When he comes to her apartment he has made a full human sized muppet-like puppet of himself which he puts on his shoulder. She asks him why he has done this and he says, so that he could be tall enough to kiss her. She asks why he didn’t just get stilts, they would mean that he could kiss her properly. He says he thought about it but decided it might be insensitive somehow. She asks him why the puppet would be less insensitive and points out that the puppet is also weirder. He says that he just wanted to work on something for her. He spent time on it to prove that it wasn’t a joke. She asks him if he still wants to kiss her, they kiss, and Jim says that for that she can keep the puppet. He then excuses himself and leaves.
Now Emma is very confused. She talks to Jim’s inanimate puppet about it. She loves this guy on the internet but he doesn’t know what she actually looks like. She always thought that was what she wanted, somebody who would love her for what she is, not what she looks like. But she thinks Jim seems to love her for who she is and for what she looks like.
Emma decides to break up with internet guy. He is desperate to meet her and prove how she’s made the wrong decision. He asks why, she tells him that she met somebody, and he says that that seems unfair because she hasn’t ever let him meet her. This changes her mind and she agrees. John C. Reilly arrives at her apartment and she hasn’t warned him about her height so he is a bit bemused to say the least. But he says the right things eventually. She says that she needs time.
Emma talks to the Jim doll and tells it that she’s not sure what to do. Surely this should be a really happy moment? But it isn’t because she’s spent her whole life being reminded that whenever anyone notices her, something bad always happens. It’s hard to unlearn that. Two people chasing her makes her panicked. And accepting one of them means disappointing one of them. Maybe, she thinks aloud, she would be better off just staying inside forever and shutting everyone out?
But Emma knows that when she was alone she reached out to meet John on the internet. She needed something. And he provided it, and he had been very sweet tonight. She hardly knew Jim really, but there was something magical about him. Something so exciting. Maybe she needed somebody who would take her outside, somebody like Jim, that would take her out of her shell. But really… Really… It has to be one thing at a time. John was exciting enough a development in Emma’s life. She turns to her computer and finds that he’s still up. He’s staying in a local hotel. She asks him to meet her in the bar. And despite herself she goes.
So yes. My dreams are a bit weird. I mean that would be a pretty bizarre movie as so much of it would be happening off screen in Emma’s head and on the internet. But that’s the way I dream pretty much. Most nights. Complete stories just like that. As Katherine often says about one of my terrible puns, at least I amuse myself.
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