Dreams, Because Why Not? · 9:30pm Apr 2nd, 2015
My original plan for today's blog was to write a little something about my current opinion of Show vs. Tell. Two problems with that plan:
1) My opinions regarding the subject are likely to have people unfollow me in outrage.
2) The very thing that gave me the idea won't be a subject of discussion for a little while yet, so the context can't be properly explained.
So instead I wanted to bring up something entirely different: dreams. Why? Because this. It got me to thinking about some of the dreams I've had in the past. Thus, in the name of bringing up random stuff like I almost never do in these blogs, I've decided to share with you guys one of the weirdest dreams I've ever had.
Now, I've had a lot of dreams lately. No really, for some reason my brain has been on a dream kick for the past few months. I'm accustomed to having a dream maybe once every two months, but suddenly I'm having them every night. Maybe it's because I read a lot now, I dunno. My dreams tend to be rather vivid, and I've had plenty that scared the crap out of me, others that were confusing, and a few that were just downright WTF?
This dream comes from that third category. It's a pretty old one, too.
It's World war II. My sister and I are in a small unit of maybe forty soldiers, going through the paces in some unknown German city. It's about what you'd expect, really: battered and broken houses, lots of debris and craters, no civilians in sight, grey and cloudy day. Haven't run into any Germans so far, which is a relief. It's also mildly unbelievable, so we're on alert.
Then we get to the river. It's only about 15 feet wide, but clearly deep and with a fast current. Strangely, the only way across is a drawbridge which can only be set down from the controls on the other side of the river. It's about a thirty foot drop on either side of the river, too, so swimming across isn't an option. Wost of all? There are the Germans on the other side, hiding behind a tall stone wall running along both sides of the river.
Great. Now what?
My sister and the others get together and start trying to hash out plans. Me? I'm thirsty, so I grab one of the drinks that are right there and readily available for no apparent reason. There's plenty to drink, but only of one thing: German beer. I imagine a lot of people reading this will say "Sweet!" at this point.
I. Don't. Drink.
Shit.
But I've got to drink something, so I grab one of the cans and make myself at home by a window of the wall on our side of the river (ignoring the potential of being picked off, because that never happens). I'm sitting there, bitter and staring at this can of liquid shit I'm going to have to force myself to drink and really wishing I had some Sprite, which was my favorite soda of the time. Movement catches my attention, and I look out over the river.
There's another window directly opposite mine. There's a German soldier there, almost mimicking my laid back pose. He's got his gun slung over his shoulder, so not threatening at all, and he looks about as bored and unhappy as I feel. He waves. I wave back. He raises a can in his hand. I raise mine. Both of us stare.
I've got a beer.
He's got a Sprite.
How the hell?
We demonstrate our mutual surprise with a range of gestures and waving. I point at my can, then to him. He point at his can, then to me. The message is clear: "Wanna trade?"
Yes. Yes we do.
Of course, we could just throw the cans, but nah, too obvious or something shut up. I have a rope in my hand that wasn't there before, let's make a mini-bridge or some shit. He gets my message without me doing anything, and we manage to get the rope to cross over to his side of the river and back around. We each use an extra pouch we both miraculously have and attach them to the ropes with our respective beverages inside. Pull on the rope – which has somehow become a loop – and we've successfully delivered to one another our drinks.
We congratulate one another, pop open our cans and take a few gulps.
The taste is beautiful.
I pause.
I look at my can of sprite, then at the mountains of beer on my side of the wall. An idea forms. I turn to the guy and gesture.
Hey, want some more?
You bet he does.
Five cans later, my sister and the others find me at the wall, eagerly passing cans of beer to the enemy for an equal share of Sprite. Fifteen minutes later, the entire unit has strung up about a dozen rope bridges across the river, cans of Sprite and beer passing back and forth amid cheers from both sides. The Germans are really enjoying that alcohol, too. Guzzling it down. Laughing. Grinning and celebrating.
Say, why don't you just lower that drawbridge so we can just carry this stuff to you?
You know what? *hic* That's a damn good idea.
The drawbridge starts to go down. We get ready to cross.
We aren't carrying beer.
I wake up.
...
WTF?
...
I stopped drinking sprite after that.
The Gentle Nights: Audience of One Chapter 19: April 4 or 5
Reddux the Tyrant Chapter 19: April 11 or 12
Shadow Pony: Tentative April 25th
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If you had remained asleep, Pinkie Pie would have shown up and started singing.
I'm gonna go out and drink a whole lotta sprite now.
That was great. :D
2937771
I can't stand the stuff anymore. Really, it tastes nasty to me now.
Also, Pinkie showing up would have been appropriate to her 4th wall breaking abilities, as MLP:FiM hadn't even aired at the time I'd had that dream. Yeah, it really stuck with me.
2938029
Definitely one of my weirder dreams.
Nope, not carry Sprite. Carrying your weapons to take care of a bunch of drunk Germans to make it easier?
Things like that did happen in Europe during World War 1 and 2. Not often but it did.
2939643
Well, I might feel bad, but it's kinda hard when the whole thing got me a promotion and my sister is looking at me all jealous. I love that look on her face. Tends to make me... what was I supposed to be ashamed of?
I love dreams because of how little sense they make. During the dream everything just sort of happens; events jump in an out of focus, items popping out of hammerspace or breaking physical laws are accepted without questions. The dream moves along and everything makes perfect sense. Then one wakes up and the impossible logic that held it together shatters.
It's like the opposite of reading a story, really; willing suspension of disbelief hinges on a story having consistent logic, and if it doesn't the story fails. But a dream is all willing suspension and no logic, and the failure comes when you wake up and regain your disbelief.
It's especially interesting since so many dreams do follow some plot conventions, like having characters and a chain of events. But the way they stick together is so unlike any other story.
Reminds me of some of my own bizarre dreams (a list far too big to rehash in a short comment
).
Thanks for sharing.
2952126
Dreams are certainly curious, aren't they? The more I think about this, the more I realize that most dream depictions in stories (including my own) are not at all representative of how dreams really are. I'd like to hope that I can improve in that realm now that the subject seems to blatantly obvious to me.
2952199 It's definitely an odd atmosphere to try and replicate. Even stories that do it well have to maintain internal logic. Most stories that involve dreams tend to make the content weird rather than the flow in order to avoid that. Things like Inception or Pan's Labyrinth take that approach and make it work, but obviously prose can't rely on the same sort of bombastic visuals as film.