If our eyes are the windows into our souls, I’d like to propose that dreams are the independent films of our souls. If you’re familiar with the Indie film movement you’ll know what I mean. They’re usually bizarre and the actors are often people you would never expect to see in the role of a fishnet stocking’d, dog training transvestite. Indie pictures aren't filmed to appeal to the general public. Much like dreams. You know how it is. You tell a friend about a recent indie movie you saw, and it goes something like this, “I loved it. Robert DeNiro was such a natural with those dogs. He’s such a method actor. You could tell by the way he ran after those dogs in such high stiletto heels. But I don’t think you’d like it. It’s different.” At that point you might recommend a mainstream film such as Titanic or Die Hard 1, 2, or 3.
All films, like dreams, attempt to portray human desire, fear, hope, and, yes, dreams (hm). Yet the screenplays of indie films, like dreams, bear little resemblance to the glossy Hollywood films which appeal to a wider audience and may not be as confusing to the average American.
Dreams frequently betray our calm collected exterior. Have you ever woken from a dream and with sudden terror realized that you were kissing your 62 year old bitter middle-school algebra teacher? Me neither. I was just saying.
Anyway, Freud and Jung exhaustively analyzed dreams. Where Jung might ask you to free associate what the algebra teacher meant to you as a child, Freud would be like, "Ah, in dreams such as zis, generally, za symbolizm of za math teacher iz revealing some sexual anxiety wiz regards to your father."
All that to say, I had a dream two nights ago in which the president of the United States was totally into me.
I mean flirtatious in an oddly political-lobbying, yet familiar sort of way. We’d be talking politics and I’d be invited to come discuss them personally at the White House the next day. At which point I would suddenly realize the time was 4 p.m. and have to excuse myself because I told my grandma I’d be at her place at 11 a.m. They gave me a lift in one of those bullet proof black Yukon’s the Secret Service drives, hiding the president in one of them like that trick with the ping pong ball and the 3 plastic cups. Then they dropped me off. Well, it was more like I swung out on the opened passenger door as they sped along the freeway and after smiling familiarly at the president, I jumped out, tucked-and-rolled to a stop and swam across a Jordan-river-wide moat to get over to grandma's house. You know how it is.
Please, get the picture of G.W. Bush flirting with me out of your head. That kind of dream would require serious psychoanalysis. Over breakfast I realized I never knew I was so ambitious. Dreams reveal ambition even if we like to pretend we don't have any. I don't think the dream reveals that I want to be The President. Too much responsibility and very little payback as far as I'm concerned. I guess I just want to date the president of the United States. Those of you still weirded out by my sexual orientation may want to avert your eyes at this point. In the progressive mood of this upcoming election, the president with whom I was enjoying the company of, in the fray of secret service agents and advisers running down emptied back stairwells, was a woman approximately the age of Obama. She was pretty cool. She was NOT Hillary. She wore jeans.
So why did I share this dream? Well, partly because when I woke up I giggled to myself all the way through breakfast and brushing my teeth, and so concluded that I must share it. I was quite enjoying myself in the dream. I felt really cool. When we were all hustling down the back staircase of some building --me, the president, secret agents with their com devices held in their ears, and advisers with cell phones up to theirs-- what I really remember is liking the intellect and solid purposefullness of the president. I don't remember lusting for her or being attracted only in a purely physical way. It was her eyes, her candor, her smile, her intellect (because we talked about a lot of things...that I have no recollection of), and, obviously, her involvement in the world at large. All the things I'm realizing, in my waking hours, I like when I see in another woman. I'm meeting women and the ones I gravitate towards are no surprise. Involved, active, bright, smart, cute. There was something about that particular president of the United States that represents qualities I gravitate towards. She was an archetype, Jung would say, of my conscious/unconscious desires.
This gay thing is new to me. Sort of. New in a "oh, look, my dead great grandfather opened a savings account in my name a 100 years ago that now has $2,000,152 in it, and I didn't even know about it until now" kind of way. It's all brand new to me, but it was always there. It's not like I'm all of a sudden having to learn something new. This has always been in me. That's why dreams like this don't surprise me, and in fact make me giddy. The dream revealed a reality of my current life that is new and exciting. I am excited. For the first time, EVER, I know God has someone for me. Maybe not the President (although I did meet a young woman recently who said, "remember my name because I'll be running for president one day"), but someone who I'll be into. Someone who is into me. It is no small matter. I can count on one hand the amount of successive minutes I have ever spent optimistic about my future with regards to marriage & guys. Do with that what you want. I'm happy that I'm not dreaming of faceless male-like figures with ambiguous feelings for me and no definitive character or passion. That's what I dreamt of most exclusively. I thought it was God reserving the right to not disclose my future lover. Really.
Something about a dream like this tells me a lot about how I am experiencing my life. Sometimes dreams tell us we're anxious. Sometimes giddy. Other times, dreams reveal our acceptance of the gifts --and we frequently don't see them until, well, until we do-- that God has for us.
By the way, could you imagine the headlines if I dated the president?
"President dating gay Christian, unites country"
All films, like dreams, attempt to portray human desire, fear, hope, and, yes, dreams (hm). Yet the screenplays of indie films, like dreams, bear little resemblance to the glossy Hollywood films which appeal to a wider audience and may not be as confusing to the average American.
Dreams frequently betray our calm collected exterior. Have you ever woken from a dream and with sudden terror realized that you were kissing your 62 year old bitter middle-school algebra teacher? Me neither. I was just saying.
Anyway, Freud and Jung exhaustively analyzed dreams. Where Jung might ask you to free associate what the algebra teacher meant to you as a child, Freud would be like, "Ah, in dreams such as zis, generally, za symbolizm of za math teacher iz revealing some sexual anxiety wiz regards to your father."
All that to say, I had a dream two nights ago in which the president of the United States was totally into me.
I mean flirtatious in an oddly political-lobbying, yet familiar sort of way. We’d be talking politics and I’d be invited to come discuss them personally at the White House the next day. At which point I would suddenly realize the time was 4 p.m. and have to excuse myself because I told my grandma I’d be at her place at 11 a.m. They gave me a lift in one of those bullet proof black Yukon’s the Secret Service drives, hiding the president in one of them like that trick with the ping pong ball and the 3 plastic cups. Then they dropped me off. Well, it was more like I swung out on the opened passenger door as they sped along the freeway and after smiling familiarly at the president, I jumped out, tucked-and-rolled to a stop and swam across a Jordan-river-wide moat to get over to grandma's house. You know how it is.
Please, get the picture of G.W. Bush flirting with me out of your head. That kind of dream would require serious psychoanalysis. Over breakfast I realized I never knew I was so ambitious. Dreams reveal ambition even if we like to pretend we don't have any. I don't think the dream reveals that I want to be The President. Too much responsibility and very little payback as far as I'm concerned. I guess I just want to date the president of the United States. Those of you still weirded out by my sexual orientation may want to avert your eyes at this point. In the progressive mood of this upcoming election, the president with whom I was enjoying the company of, in the fray of secret service agents and advisers running down emptied back stairwells, was a woman approximately the age of Obama. She was pretty cool. She was NOT Hillary. She wore jeans.
So why did I share this dream? Well, partly because when I woke up I giggled to myself all the way through breakfast and brushing my teeth, and so concluded that I must share it. I was quite enjoying myself in the dream. I felt really cool. When we were all hustling down the back staircase of some building --me, the president, secret agents with their com devices held in their ears, and advisers with cell phones up to theirs-- what I really remember is liking the intellect and solid purposefullness of the president. I don't remember lusting for her or being attracted only in a purely physical way. It was her eyes, her candor, her smile, her intellect (because we talked about a lot of things...that I have no recollection of), and, obviously, her involvement in the world at large. All the things I'm realizing, in my waking hours, I like when I see in another woman. I'm meeting women and the ones I gravitate towards are no surprise. Involved, active, bright, smart, cute. There was something about that particular president of the United States that represents qualities I gravitate towards. She was an archetype, Jung would say, of my conscious/unconscious desires.
This gay thing is new to me. Sort of. New in a "oh, look, my dead great grandfather opened a savings account in my name a 100 years ago that now has $2,000,152 in it, and I didn't even know about it until now" kind of way. It's all brand new to me, but it was always there. It's not like I'm all of a sudden having to learn something new. This has always been in me. That's why dreams like this don't surprise me, and in fact make me giddy. The dream revealed a reality of my current life that is new and exciting. I am excited. For the first time, EVER, I know God has someone for me. Maybe not the President (although I did meet a young woman recently who said, "remember my name because I'll be running for president one day"), but someone who I'll be into. Someone who is into me. It is no small matter. I can count on one hand the amount of successive minutes I have ever spent optimistic about my future with regards to marriage & guys. Do with that what you want. I'm happy that I'm not dreaming of faceless male-like figures with ambiguous feelings for me and no definitive character or passion. That's what I dreamt of most exclusively. I thought it was God reserving the right to not disclose my future lover. Really.
Something about a dream like this tells me a lot about how I am experiencing my life. Sometimes dreams tell us we're anxious. Sometimes giddy. Other times, dreams reveal our acceptance of the gifts --and we frequently don't see them until, well, until we do-- that God has for us.
By the way, could you imagine the headlines if I dated the president?
"President dating gay Christian, unites country"
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