Marilyn Manson at the Oscars

This was a dream.  I feel I should state this in the opening, lest the title of this post trick people into reading it, hoping to find some tawdry gossip detail about the goth king/queen on the red carpet.  Then again, if you've read even this far, I've already won. So I dreamt that I was at the Kodak Theater with a friend, trying to get into the Oscars.  Despite the fact that we had already walked down the red carpet and looked FABulous, the usher wasn't going to let us in.  We watched wistfully as the Hollywood elite passed us, one by one, to enter the building (in reality, the thought of watching the Oscars in uncomfortable clothes while unable to get up, eat stuff or "change the channel" during the Billy Crystal parts is not altogether appealing).

Suddenly, our good friend Marilyn Manson showed up (he always saves the day- that bouncing ball of sunshine)!  He was excited to see us (of course), and told the usher, "they're with me."  Well, that was enough to get us into the second row!  Marilyn was REALLY excited because they were going to premiere a trailer of his new (and first) film.  He claimed it was going to have an amazing visual style and that he felt that he was really entering a new chapter in his life.

Apparently, they show trailers before the Academy Award ceremonies.  I mean, I would assume they would...

Anyway, the trailer started.  It was a disaster.  The amazing visual style was completely absent because no one had bothered to render out any of the visual effects.  They were basically just screencaps of a 3D grid with nauseatingly colored particle effects flying across the screen.  The audience booed.  Marilyn was DEVASTATED.  So upset, in fact, that he had to leave.  My friend went off to console him.  I stayed for the rest of the preshow.

I can tell you from my dream that the pre-awards goings-on are really exciting! Not only do they show cutting-edge movie trailers, they also feature live projections given by avant-garde film artists!  A man sitting right behind me was projecting the most beautiful light show on the ceiling of the theater.  The crowd was loving it, and I was excited about what I might be able to someday do with some of my light-based pieces.

After the light show, I talked to the man about his projection device- a $3 trinket he purchased from a toy store. We laughed about how cheap it was to entertain Hollywood, while they spend millions trying to entertain us.  Marilyn returned to the theater, his gothy makeup smeared by his tears.  Then there was something about a goat.

I woke up because my cat stepped on my face.

Dreams

While talking to a friend the other night, I realized that I could probably keep my blog nicely filled out by writing about some of the dreams I have. I remember my dreams almost every morning. Some of them are mundane and not really worth repeating. For example, when I've taken Ambien, I usually dream about not being able to fall asleep, being hungry, or going to work (though in my waking moments on that drug, I battle flatscreen television-stealing gypsies with my broadsword and swim with talking sharks- go figure). Most of my dreams, however, have been fodder for screenplays and short films. And a few of them are so bizarre, they wouldn't even be re-creatable with today's modern cinematic technology. The dream I recounted for him was on the cinematic side.

The background: I had just returned from Comic-Con, with geek pop culture fresh on my mind. Rising to the top of my thoughts, of course, was Lost. I had an initial suspicion that the current viral marketing campaign was part of a contest of sorts (I've since kind of given up on that idea). My hope/dream/thought was that the winner might win a walk-on spot, based on the fact that we had to do video "interviews" for "recruitment."

The dream: I was on a plane to... somewhere overseas... to audition for Lost. I had to get off the plane because I somehow didn't have my boarding pass. I went to go stand in line and realized I didn't have my passport, either. Two guys in front of me took my place on the plane (I don't do math in my dreams), and I was forced to wait for the next flight. Luckily, there was a group of Lost folk in the airport, and they were practicing for the upcoming auditions. I decided to join them. Josh Holloway was there and decided he was going to help me get the role (despite my massive crush on Sawyer, that's about as racy as it got).

There was an obstacle course that we needed to get through.  After a bit of coaching by Sawyer, I took off.  I ran across a tropical field to a sort of Mayan temple.  I had to scale the side of the temple.  I was surprised by how quickly I was able to get to my goal: a large wax candle.  My mission was to bring the melted wax of this candle back down to the ground.

I scooped the wax up in my hand.  This presented a problem: the temple was suddenly quite steep and there was no way I would be able to make it back down using only one hand.  I decided the only solution was to hold the wax in my mouth.  I ladled the warm wax into my mouth, where it began to solidify.  I feared that I would choke, but I climbed back down.  At the bottom, I handed off the wax, which at this point had turned to a kind of glowing piece of amber, and boarded the plane, now confident in my ability to get the role.

This next part happens quite often in my dreams: the plane began taxiing, but could not take off (if you ask me, that's a pretty lazy metaphor that my mind has concocted for my film career, but I'll take it).  We wound our way through the streets of Manhattan in this jumbo jet, never quite able to get enough runway for liftoff.

Somehow, my friend and I were in... some tropical location (Hawaii, maybe).  He confessed to me that he was actually one of the co-creators of Lost, but that J.J. Abrams, Carlton Cuse, and Damon Lindelof kind of cut him out of the picture.  He proved this by revealing where the show was headed (and curses!  I don't remember what he said!  Guess I will have to keep watching...)  I asked if he was upset.  He confessed that he initially was, but that he was too excited about his latest project (more on that soon) to let it really bother him.

After that, things either got too blurry to recall or I woke up...

Munkphilm

"Munphilm" came to me through a dream: I had a great job working with the orcas at a monastery (yes, a monastery with killer whales- what?) I swam with them at night, which was quite frightening. I couldn't see them approaching me and suddenly, my body would lurch through the water. I would find myself tumbling through the air and plunging down to the bottom of the pool... luckily, we can do things like this in a dream and not drown!

One morning, a monk approached me. He handed me a toothbrush and told me to clean the orca pool, brush stroke by brush stroke. I took this duty and found that just as I had made a complete circle around the entirety of the pool, algae began appearing at my starting point. My day became an endless circle of the minutiae of whale care!

The monk in the dream was my friend Phil (hence the title). In this film, I try to explore yin and yang- depth, mystery and darkness interrupted by cuts of smooth, metallic vibrancy (note: you guessed it, this film is also silent - there will be sound in later films, but aren't you glad you don't have to turn the volume down at work?)

New Dreams

Dreams fascinate me. Some people believe that they represent an alternate reality- a real world in which we only partially live. Others think that they provide profound insight into the psyche- a kind of "mind's eye." Still others believe that they are just "brain farts," or your mind's attempt at dumping excess information. Whatever they are, I find mine to be rich and often vivid. Furthermore, I find it interesting that many of us have similar recurring themes that pop up in dreams. For example, who hasn't had a dream about flying? This theme is even documented well before humans were physically capable of flying! Anyway, last night was a particularly strange night, not only for me, but for a lot of people I have talked to today! Everyone seems to have had strange dreams. I had several:

Dream One: I am eating breakfast with my mother. The waiter keeps bringing over the specials. All of them have loads of bacon, ham, sausage, etc.

"This looks great," I tell him, "but do you have any vegetarian versions?"

He doesn't respond, he just goes back to the kitchen. Suddenly, I see a stationary streak in the sky. The sky is kind of orange, like it's sunset or sunrise, and this silver streak is hovering menacingly in the sky. I ask my mom what she thinks it is. She tells me that it is probably a comet. I tell her that comets don't look like that. She then suggests a meteor. Again, I disagree. "It would be moving," I insist. Finally, we agree that it is a rocket or some kind of plane. I get nervous that it might be a bomb.

I look at it through binoculars (don't we all take binoculars to breakfast with us). Sure enough, it is a rocket of some sort. I begin to get nervous because it is heading toward the ground.

It hits the ground. We see a flash of light. The sound comes with the first clouds of smoke and dust. As the cloud gets closer, I grab my mother to head for the door.

"I need to get out of here," I tell her. "September eleventh. I can't do it again." (I was in Brooklyn on 9/11 and the cloud from the buildings' collapse did, in fact, move its way quickly across the water to envelope my neighborhood.) She agrees to let me drive the car to escape.

I start the car and we begin to move away from the cloud, but something is wrong with the brake/gas pedals. For some reason, I have to pedal them like a bicycle, which is making it hard to actually gain speed. We pull over to pick up her husband and my boyfriend.

Her husband thinks it's silly that we are running. He says that he hasn't even heard of a crash. Indeed, I turn on the radio and there is no word of a crash or a bomb. We decided to head back.

Once we are back, I grab my boyfriend and tell him that I want to go check out the crash site. When we finally get there, we see nothing but barren land. There is no burn mark, no impact crater, nothing. I'm very nervous about this. Finally we see a sort of commune. There are thousands of people standing around with bowls. I freak out and insist that we leave. I get the feeling that they are not human. I wake up.

Dream Two: This one was the most frightening because it seemed very real. I get up out of bed to go to the bathroom. I am about to go back to bed when I look in the mirror. The bathroom is dark and my image is obscured. Suddenly, I notice my neck. It seems very leathery- almost scaly. It begins to stretch. My face begins to transform. I freak out and go back into the bedroom. I try my hardest to scream. I keep trying, but nothing comes. I decide to bang on the walls to make noise and wake up the household, but I can't even do that. I wake up to my real self screaming. Yikes!

Dream Three: Someday, I will recount my real-life dental nightmare. It's an important thing for the world to know! Anyway, another recurring nightmare for me is the losing of teeth. I guess this is pretty common. I don't remember all of the details, but I remember one of my molars becoming loose. I play with it (like we did when our baby teeth fell out), but I begin to get very scared that I'm going to lose it. It eventually becomes so loose that it is just hanging by a thread (yuck). I decide it needs to come out. I pack my mouth full of crushed ice to numb it before pulling it out. At this point I try to tell myself that it is only a dream and that everything will be okay when I wake up. The only problem is, I can actually feel the ice! My whole mouth is cold. I can also feel the tooth! Eventually, I wake up and realize that it is freezing in the bedroom and I have fallen asleep on my back with my mouth open. Thus the cold mouth.

I had several more throughout the night, but this is good enough! The others are rather vague. I need to quit one of my three jobs- I think I am stressed to the point of insanity!

Sci-Fi Dream

My first dream post: I "wake up" and find myself on a spacecraft surrounded by aliens. I get up and look around the ship. The room is somewhat circular and has two levels. I am on the lower level. I see other humans around me (on both levels). Two of the aliens approach me. I ask them why they keep taking me and what they want from me. They "tell" me (they don't really talk) that they just want to get to know us and they can only take certain people. As I begin to ask them why, there is some commotion on board. Everyone seems panicked. One of the beings tells me that I am about to find out why they take me.

They guide me over to a sort of window and I see a giant, reddish, electric-looking ribbon moving toward us. I glean bits of conversation around me and begin to understand that this is some sort of time disturbance. The ribbon gets closer and closer. Suddenly, it envelops us. I look at the other humans. Some of them, like me, just seem kind of stunned. However, many of them fall on the floor in pain- almost as if they are having a heart attack. We spend a few moments in this strange reality and then it is over. Everyone tries to help the people who were in pain. Someone explains to me (though I don't really see them) that most humans can't handle a shift in time like that and that's what makes me and some of the other people on board unique. They tell me to think of it this way: fish cannot survive out of the water. They need to pass water through their gills to keep their bodies functioning. Humans cannot survive out of their time reality. Our bodies require a sort of "rhythm" to keep functioning (heart beat, breath, etc.) Apparently, I (like some of the other people on board)am kind of like an amphibian- able to survive in both "environments!"

I don't remember too much after that. It's had me thinking, though- Were our fishy ancestors aware of life beyond the water? Probably not. There was no way for them to even probe beyond the ocean. Did any of them have dreams about being snatched out of the water? What kinds of existence aren't we aware of?