DMTC Anxiety Dream

Last night, I dreamt I was hiking through a desolate arid wilderness in Australia, featuring lots of creosote bushes on reddish hills (which is odd right there, because creosote bushes grow in the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts of the American Southwest and northern Mexico, not Australia, but nevermind).

Suddenly, it was time for a rehearsal of "The Wizard of Oz" (Director, Jan Isaacson) back at the swank coastal hotel. The place was called "The Strip", which HAD to have been Las Vegas, but since it was Australia, it was the Gold Coast (which is near Brisbane, nicknamed Bris-Vegas because of certain similarities to Vegas). And just before falling asleep, I had watched a DVD about Miami Beach night life, so the coastal tropical locale all fit together, in an odd, jumbly Miami/Gold Coast/Vegas dream-like way.

I was actually across the street from the rehearsal hotel, in another swank hotel. I HAD to get to rehearsal. So I descended down a packed, slow troublesome hotel elevator with several DMTC friends. The elevator let me off on the wrong floor without my friends - and then I suddenly got turned around.

Suddenly I was running along the top of a parking structure, heading directly towards fireworks and loud music ("76 Trombones") coming from yet another hotel farther down the Strip. I couldn't get there, however, because of steep walls and no stairs, so I had to backtrack through the hotel, and through the ground-level hotel bar. I saw Lenore Sebastian there, but she didn't see me, and I seemed to have laryngitis and couldn't communicate to her.

Then I passed into a back garage of the bar. The garage was filled with rusting automobiles from the 1930's. I was menaced by a large, growling whippet and caustic Australian mechanics. I managed to placate the dog and the Aussies, however, and passed outside into the gardens (that looked a lot like Vegas' Tropicana Hotel's grounds), but then I fell into a swimming pool and had to paddle for life. Oddly, I couldn't reach the edge of the pool, but had to desperately swim, even as they drained the pool, revealing jagged metal on the bottom of the pool that threatened to slice me up.

By now, I was very late for rehearsal. I was suspended in the air, as the surrounding crowd rhythmically chanted 'stroke, stroke, stroke!' I flailed my arms in the empty pool, striving for dear life. Just then, Jan approached the pool's edge, discovered me, shook her head at the scene, and walked off. I awoke suddenly.

Just before falling asleep, I had also rewatched the movie "Clerks", which may account for a portion of the dead-end frustration felt in the dream. The sensation of being turned around and lost reminded me of folks who have Alzheimer's, and who get turned around, and lost, quite readily.

Not sure what it was all about. Maybe "Music Man" final weekend anxiety is getting to me. I'm starting to plan a Southwest trip, so maybe trip anxiety is getting to me too. Maybe it's the forgetfulness, or the punctuality issues, or the need for social approval. Plus, I prepared my signature stir-fry for dinner last night, which gave me vivid dreams last week (I wonder if I have inadvertently added hallucinogenics to the mix somehow?)

All I know is that I'm not in Kansas anymore.