So the song this morning was "hell's bells." No idea. Last dream before I woke up: I'm at home, though it's a home I don't, and have never, lived in, and it's real early. The sun has yet to rise. I should try to sleep some but realize I'm already way too anxiety ridden over time and will be unlikely to sleep, so I think fuck it: I'm going to go somewhere and eat a good breakfast. A good breakfast is a rare and sort of leisurely thing for me and feels kind of like thumbing my nose at the stressful day ahead of me. I decide to call my buddy Big Country cause he'll be up this early and we can go to the Pot and Pan on Monroe. Then, he's already there in the house and we go outside to our cars which are in the parking lot in Little Five Points, in front of the liquor store. Only now it's not pre-dawn, it's late night and the parking lot is crowded with typical area riffraff. Big Country says Hey someone's in your car at just about the same time I notice it myself. I am surprised for a second as anyone would be. Then I am baffled. Why would any self-respecting car thief steal this car? It's a complete piece of shit. But there he is sitting in the front seat apparently trying to steal the car. He seems to be in cahoots with some guy in the car next to mine. Maybe they're stealing cars together. I walk up to my car and calmly, even with a little amusement for the world's most clueless car thief, tell him to get the fuck out of my car. Instead he backs the car out of the parking space, intending to drive away with it. I hop in the back seat, trying to grab him and make him stop driving. I pull out my knife and tell him This is my knife and in about one second it's going to be in you. But although he doesn't stop he is thrashing around a bit trying to keep from getting stabbed. Then I stab him in his right buttock. Things are a little fuzzier after that, but I do remember wondering whether I should dispose of the knife, then thinking, No I did nothing wrong and should call the cops. I woke up thinking oh my I'd better call Dr. Freud, he'll make short work of this one. You know, man invading territory, knife as penis, veiled threat of rape, display of power, all that sort of thing. Or maybe not. But I do immediately recognize a few things that served as impetus for this dream: the neighbors leaving their trash in the parking spaces in front of the house rather than taking it the extra five feet to the dumpster (it's a long story and not very interesting), and an episode of the Venture Brothers in which Brock Sampson stabs a polar bear.
As I get older I have much greater recall of my dreams, have occasional lucid dreams, and more significantly have much greater agency in my dreams. Threats rarely come from the external world (at least not to the same extent), and I rarely suffer physical violence, though apparently I inflict it. Last week, I shit you not, I had to wrestle a small (maybe four foot) alligator to defend myself. An outside, natural threat perhaps, but one which proved not so fearsome. I also had another flying dream: I was walking around the streets of Philadelphia holding a skateboard trying to figure out how to fly and meeting with occasional success. That same week I also had the worst nightmare I've had in a long time. Our country was at war, we were being bombed, the landscape was devastated and my loved ones had been killed by the bombs. The convulsing and sobbing I was doing in the dream woke me up. Sleep and I have always had a difficult relationship.
