Absolutely Sweet Dreams

I had this very dream last night. What does it all mean?

This is real.

This happened.

Just last night.

Just last night, Bob Dylan came to me in a dream.

Bob Dylan.

Wow!

Bob Dylan came to me to clean sweep the trembling mind scraps and disaster debris left by the dream I had before Bob Dylan came to me in my dream.

Thank you, Mr Zimmerman.

In the dream last night, before Bob Dylan, there was complete and utter chaos. A cacophony of sound and action which created a hot and difficult sense of anxiousness that I could not wrangle off the edge of my sleep screen, which is found in the high def, surround sound, dream theatre of my brain.

Absolutely not a sweet dream.

In that dream—the dream before Bob Dylan—a train came out of a tunnel toward me. I felt uneasy at its approach. I felt an overwhelming sense of impending doom and disaster.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

In the dream before Bob Dylan I was standing not on the tracks but beside them. This did not mean I was in no danger. Because even though I was not on the tracks, I was aware that there was something on the tracks, right beside me. That this train was going to hit.

I don’t know what was next to me—I wouldn’t look at it—but it was something large. Large and looming.

The slow train kept coming.

Impending doom became not so impending, and it struck whatever was next to me with great force. The train promptly derailed. I’m calling it a train but really it was two coupled locomotive engines. Hulking diesels.

In that moment, the engines took the impact and crumpled, parts flying off and steel and iron falling all around me. Nothing touched me in this moment. I did not even flinch.

Both engines were a sooty royal blue. They had thick, diagonal yellow stripes on their bodies and buzzed and groaned in their crashing and dying moments as mechanical bumble bees hitting a wall. This is an unnecessary detail, but something I remember.

Seconds later, a crane arm swung across from out of nowhere to help right the locomotives. I ducked too late and was knocked off my feet by the crane arm, which caused me to wake up from my dream. I was confused and worried, anxious and uneasy. It took some time to fall back to sleep, but I did.

That’s when Bob came to me.

In my dream last night, Bob Dylan came to me in a dark restaurant. Or bar, I’m not sure. This establishment had dark wooden tables and was consumed by the yellowish glow of what I would describe as ‘underground dive-bar light.’ I was seated off to the side of a group of people that Bob was evidently supposed to meet with. Important muckety-mucks or celebrity hounds eager to interview him. To give him press. To ask him the big and pointless questions.

I was nothing in this dream. A nothing and a nobody off to the side of the action and seated behind one of those wooden tables with my back against a wall. Out of the action. Not included.

Alone.

In my dream, Bob Dylan entered the room and came straight to me. He ignored them completely—walked right past—and came to sit across the table from me. The table was brown and glossy. The atmosphere felt laid back and cool.

“You can take my picture,” he said.

His tone was loving. Bob Dylan was looking directly into my soul.

I pulled out my phone and framed him up to the center of the screen. He pushed back from the table so I could get a view of his whole form, sitting on the chair. We did not speak, and every time I touched the button to take a photo, it did not work. I puzzled my brow but said nothing.

The dream kept on moving. So did Bob.

Every few seconds, in my dream last night, Bob Dylan would change his pose on the chair. Change his pose. Change his pose. Each time, a new smile, a new angle, a new view and each time, no photo, no photo, no photo. Camera fail, camera fail, camera fail.

It didn’t matter. Honestly, I couldn’t believe he was letting me take his photo at all, so I pretended everything was fine so as to not stress him. Over and over, no photos were captured. In my heart, I just accepted that yes, of course there are no photos. Of course there is no proof this is happening.

I’ll remember this forever, I thought. This moment. The moment Bob Dylan ignored everyone else and let me to take his photograph. In my dream.

Even in dreams, you cannot get a clear picture of the real Bob Dylan.

He stood up.

In my dream last night, Bob Dylan stood up and left to go make to a meal. A meal for me.

Bob Dylan! Making me dinner! In my dream!

At this point, the muckety-mucks Bob Dylan had ignored, scurried over to me. They were astounded by what was happening and whispered in hushed and agitated tones as to my good fortune.

It did not compute for them. Bob Dylan, in my dream, was ignoring them and paying attention to me—it was unbelievable. But they were in for one more rude shock.

Because…

In my dream last night, Bob Dylan came back with the food he’d prepared and served it to me and only me. To everyone’s surprise, he didn’t use a plate and just laid each ingredient directly on the wooden table in front of me. He started with three slices of stewed pear, laying them out artfully and with care. He then laid a strip of what looked like delicious and perfectly cooked rib eye next to it. Then came a ladle of steaming gravy and finally, a dollop of mashed potato.

All of it directly onto the table surface.

Eyes went wide. The muckety-mucks looked at each other in horror. I grabbed a knife and fork and began hacking at the steak proving to all, I guess, that I’ll eat absolutely anything Bob Dylan serves me, no matter how unsanitary the conditions.

There’s a gap here.

In my dream last night, Bob Dylan served up this guff right on the table and I hacked away at the meat and ate bites of it and… then the dream memory drops off a bit and Bob disappears. When the dream memory picks up, I ask someone why Bob Dylan paid me any attention at all. This is what I am told.

I am told that outside of my dream, Bob Dylan had read something. He had read something he liked and asked who had written it. Guess what? I had written it. Bob Dylan liked something I wrote, but when he was with me in my dream, having his photo taken and serving me weird food, he never mentioned that. He never gave me any context at all as to why he was in my dream.

Bob! It’s a dream. You could’ve said something.

But no. I am left with this.

In my dream last night, Bob Dylan came to me to tell me something, but I must work out what that something is, and what—if anything—it all might mean.

Was Bob Dylan saying that I don’t need a plate on which to serve my work, my creativity, my flavor and style? Serve it up however I want.

By coming directly to me in my dream and ignoring the muckety-mucks, was Bob Dylan saying that I don’t need to follow expected paths of self-promotion? Don’t stress the constant feeling that I need to be social.

In my failed photos of Bob Dylan, was he saying that not every moment needs to be documented? Leave the phone at home.

And was the train derailing at the start a reminder of my catastrophizing ways and how pointless that is? I will get knocked over. But I will get back up.

Was that really Bob Dylan?

Dreams.

Dreams are just dreams. Mind glitches with pictures.

We dream in the daytime, and we dream in the night. We dream when we’re asleep and we dream when we’re awake. We dream of success and failure, and where and who and what we want to be. We say things like “pipe dreams” and “beyond our wildest dreams.” We think of dream scenarios and create myth around American dreams and electric dreams and teenage dreams.

We pursue them and we live them.

I think a dream is just you talking to yourself.

Working things out in the round.

Am I saying that I’m Bob Dylan?

No.

Bob Dylan didn’t visit me in a dream last night.

A train did not derail next to me.

But in that dream, I am everything and everyone.

I am the train. I am the meal. I am the muckety-mucks to the side talking shit.

I am capable of being admired and creating my own legend.

Am I Bob Dylan?

No.

But also, absolutely.

---

This week’s amends…

"I think the history of art is simply a history of getting rid of the ugly by entering into it, and using it. After all, the notion of something outside of us being ugly is not outside of us but inside of us. And that’s why I keep reiterating that we’re working with our minds. What we’re trying to do is to get them open so that we don’t see things as being ugly, or beautiful, but as we see them just as they are."

– John Cage

I snagged this from The Marginalian post on John Cage. More goodies there.

---

On Rotation: “Absolutely Sweet Marie” by Mr. Robert Zimmerman

When thinking of a name for today’s post, which I often do after I’ve finished writing the thing, I suddenly remembered Absolutely Sweet Marie and the usage of the word sweet made me think of sweet dreams and what a nice link that was.

But here’s the thing. I couldn’t quite remember how the song went, plugged it in, and it has one of my favorite first lines from a Bob Dylan song. And wow—it’s about trains. Weird, I thought. That first dream was about trains and them jumping the gauge (right off the track, but whatever. I looked up the lyrics and apparently he says gate not gauge, but same thing. Turns out I’ve misheard that lyric for decades.)

But then, get this. I talk in the piece about it not being Bob Dylan in the dream, but actually me. And then there’s this line in the song.

Well, anybody can be just like me, obviously
But then, now again, not too many can be like you, fortunately

That dream was trying to tell me something.

Be yourself. I can’t be Bob Dylan. I can only be me.

And there endeth my interpretation of my own dream. The dream I had last night.

A reminder that all songs featured in this newsletter over the years are added to the giant mega super playlist of magnificents and magnificence which you can access with an effortless depress of this button. 👇

---

There was a time in my life when I would’ve instantly bought a book about the disappearing booths of the Eastern Bloc. I still want to. But alas, all my spare money (lol) is sunk into things like vinyl and my latest obsession, kayaks.

In the same vein, I love photographer, Richard Johnson’s, images of ice fishing huts.

First link via Creative Boom, and second via Swiss Miss

---

Horndog.

aesethtics

A post shared by @aesethtics

Via Kottke

---

Shameless Podcast Plug

Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈

Here’s Apple

---