When I’m writing something long, I don’t dream.
I consider dreamlessness a professional benefit, a kind of extra liability insurance. But I’m not writing anything long at the moment so have been beset by dreams.
Generally, I don’t care for dreams. They are my storytelling energy dissipated in out-of-control ziggities. A waste of good sleep, and of any waking time I might need to spend shaking off the effects of a dream.
Last night, though, I liked a dream:
I was at a sort of convention when I was invited to try out some new kitchen-type gadgets. OK, I said and saw a row of maybe seven tables each of which displayed a gadget. Each of these gadgets mixed up some liquid refreshment. I was to sip the refreshment and evaluate the gadget that had created it.
At the end, there was a gadget with a plastic jar, similar to a blender container except very large, a couple of gallons maybe, and oddly shaped with a waist nipping in the top and bottom sections. The over-large container of a mad lab scientist.
The process creating the liquid was fairly silly: like a blender, it mixed up whatever was in the container. That was it.
And who was pitching, i.e., selling this gadget? Donald Trump. He was spieling away, as orange-skinned as ever, standing at the side of the table, gesticulating aimlessly and sounding like the lousy used car salesman he is.
Behind the table was a professional electronics guy actually operating the gadget. That is, Donald was a stupid sideshow to be ignored. He was one of those amateurish TV commercials which show up at 2 in the morning selling some weird stuff nobody in her right mind would ever consider buying.
I was instructed to drink the entire jar-full of liquid. “All of it?” Yes, all of it. I did. It was chocolate milk.
“Well?” I was asked (not by Donald). “What do you think?”
I said, “I think it’s chocolate milk. No need for an elaborate gadget to mix it up — and the gadget made way too much of it.”
“But–” the guy started to explain.
I woke up, having put Donald in his rightful place but full of too much imaginary chocolate milk.