NIGHTTIME

Today the American Mastodon was roused from sleep by a particularly haunting dream. The only problem is, he can't remember specifically what was so haunting. Dreams have always been a point of fascination for the AM. One question he has always asked is this: can the content of a dream affect the decisions you make in your non-dreaming life?

For instance, the American Mastodon used to be particularly smitten with a lady Mastodon during his high school years. Though the young lass and the AM were friends, the AM could not muster the courage to "make a move", and instead pined for her from afar and went on with his life. He wooed other female Mastodons and was wooed in returned. When the young lady Mastodon, two years older than the AM, left for college, there was a void left in her absence that the AM filled through dreaming. Which was fine, except that it was totally fucked up and torturous and would not stop when the AM wished it to. At each moment when the AM would get close to a lady that was not the original, unattainable, paragon of beauty he allowed to slip through his fingers, he would have the same exact dream:

A friend is having a party. The AM shows up with his new gal in tow, only to find that at the party is his old crush. The AM leaves his gal to mingle with friends and then ducks into a sideroom to have a conversation with the old crush. Words are exchanged, heartfelt, very similar to an actual conversation. At this point the AM is faced with the same, very real, though still fictious scenario: grab the crush by the hand and walk outside, or return to the party and the new, more practical gal that the AM originally came with. (Ed. note: the AM realizes that this dream is not as symbolic or subtle as one might hope. In fact, it's incredibly straight-forward, which the AM is not proud of, if, indeed, one can be proud of their dreams.) In the dream, without fail, the AM chooses the old crush, and they spend the rest of the dream in a state of bliss, catching up and cuddling.

Upon waking, the AM would then feel guilty, ashamed, weak, and delusional. He would tell himself: it's only a dream. But somehow, considering the verisimilitude of the dream, and the participants involved, it became more than a dream. It became a litmus test for the new girl. For a few years, each new girl would have to undergo the "dream test". And, of course, all of them failed. Finally, the AM met a girl and the dream did not manifest itself. With this girl he was together for a long time.

So you see, there are reasons why the AM feels like dreams are more than just dreams. He wonders what he was driving away from in his dream last night that caused his heart to race so quickly when he woke up, drenched in sweat.

As he has mentioned in the past, the American Mastodon is fascinated with aboriginal cultures. Having spent a half year in Australia, he knows a small degree about the aboriginal people of that continent. Particularly, he is intrigued by their idea that our waking lives are surreal and superficial, and completely meaningless, and only in our dreamstate do we begin to touch what is true.

The American Mastodon, after re-reading that last paragraph, realizes that that Australian aboriginals sound an awful lot like New-Age hippies.


The American Mastodon dreams of lizards and kangaroos, and dots.