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When I Met You In The Restaurant
You Could Tell I Was No Debutante
The past couple of nights I've experienced some extremely vivid dreams, the kind that, not only can you recall them in detail long after waking, but that stick in your head for days at a time. I'm sure some Freudian analyst would have a field day, but here goes:
Wednesday, two food-related dreams:
The first involved an outdoor BBQ cook off competition. I was standing in a tent piled with stacks of savory beef and pork ribs up to my eyeballs, huge, lumpen briskets, tri-tips, whole chickens, sausages; an enormous embarrassment of slow-cooked meat products. As I sampled several of the selections I could taste the sharp, vinegary tang of the sauce as it dripped from mouth to chin; I could feel in my mouth the fat-encrusted chewyness of the meat as I gnawed on the bones. Suddenly, a crew began to disassemble the tent and the display, but there was still piles of meat left over - what would they do with it all?
Fade to black...
The second dream took take place in a library or museum: the design was distinctly European, Louis XVI or similar; lots of baroque accents on the walls and with high ceilings and windows. The main room, roughly 50 or so feet long was filled with dozens of small tables arranged so that there is just enough room to walk between them. Atop each table was a silver platter containing some sort of seafood dish: acres of oysters resting on beds of crushed ice; planks of fillets, some sliced parchment-thin; legions of kippers and anchovies arranged in complex geometric patterns; mussels, crab, lobster, squid; all of it elegantly presented. Beside each platter was a small bowl containing implements such as tiny forks or toothpicks; clearly the food was there to be sampled, but only a handful of people seem to be partaking. I tried several offerings; one in particular, something made with lobster claw-meat in some sort of lemony reduction sauce, and wrapped in lettuce or some similar leafy green tasted absolutely, stunningly divine, like it was the best thing I've ever eaten, and I couldn't stop praising its virtues to some unseen person standing near me.
Another recurring set of dreams that I had both on Wednesday and last night, and one I've had frequently over the years, involves flying, or more accurately, struggling to fly. It seems I frequently have dreams where I possess the ability to defy gravity, but only with tremendous effort, like the air has a tangeable quality, more akin to water, that resists my efforts to rise. I literally have to push both through and against it, like a swimmer in a current, in order to gain even a modest altitude. Usually, I'm only barely able to achieve a height of perhaps 15 or 20 feet; this was pretty much the experience in my dream on Wednesday night. However, last night I actually found taking off to be relatively easy, although I encountered another obstical in that I become entangled in overhead power lines. Also, there was a decided difference in my "flying attitude", as normally I'm in a laid-out, horizontal position, ala Superman, but this time I was floating upright. And even though the air resistence was greatly diminished, I still could not gain much in the way of altitude, being able to only hover at about the height of a three story building. One very different variation in the dream pattern was that I distinctly recall seeing someone else floating off in the distance, which is the first time I can ever recall sharing "airspace" with another person. However, we never made contact, although I'm fairly certain we saw each other.
Like I said, some psychiatrist would probably have all sorts of interesting things to say about these subconscious ramblings, but to me the only real important aspect of them is how specific the sensory experiences were, and how vividly I can still recall details from them, even after a period of more than 30 hours. Most of us are probably used to recalling sights and sounds from dreams, maybe occasionally tactile sensations, but tastes? How often does that happen?
Maybe I just need to go to a really nice restaurant this weekend.
Posted byCOMTE
on 10:37 AM
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