Everyone has a variation of this dream.
A stripper’s on stage and her zipper is stuck.
An LAX parking lot toll taker has to move in real time, not slow motion.
You sign a lifetime contract to co-host THE VIEW.
A manager is trying to get O.J. Simpson endorsement deals.
A postal clerk’s break is over.
An AMERICAN IDOL judge suddenly draws a blank and has a vocabulary of only five words (Okay, that one was real).
A presidential candidate is under sniper fire in Bosnia.
What’s your variation of the nightmare?
My recurring dream doesn't necessarily fill me with fear. I've had a dream a few times where I show up at some sort of university and I have an exam, but never went to any of the classes. Ironically, though, that DID happen to me a number of times in real life, but I ended u doing fairly well. Amazing what the ability to bullshit will get you.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a professional diver I used to dream the pool was empty.
ReplyDeleteThere's people telling me what a great job I have and I'm thinking, that's great, I should be happy, but then I go into that job and I find that it sucks my soul away. Then I go home and I have aged about 10 years and my hair is falling out. There's this thing I want to do but each time I try to start someone interrupts me - wife, child, dog, phone. And then...
ReplyDeleteOh, you meant a dream?
Actually, my bad dreams usually involve stacks of severed limbs for some reason. Usually arms.
2008-2016: Hillary Clinton
ReplyDelete2016-2024: Jeb Bush
2024-2032: Chelsea Clinton
2032-2040: Billy Bush
I have a couple of them. The first very similar to yours. For some reason I'm on the air and we're still playing records and while one record runs out I try to find the next one to cue up and I can't! I just CAN'T!!!
ReplyDeleteIn the second dream, I'm on set shooting a commercial, but I can't get my camera to focus at all. And my talent's drunk. And I'm naked from the waist down.
???!?!!
I read somewhere that dreams may not necessarily mean anything. They may simply be your brain running a diagnostic check to make sure you're "firing on all eight" so to speak.
I think that may be true.
Except for my dreams about being back in high school, trying to make it to class on time. Except I don't have my books, I don't know where the classroom is. And I'm naked.
Oops, that should read "the talent is drunk" not "talent's."
ReplyDeleteHoly crap! I'm naked!
Yeesh.
...You read too much Penthouse forum, hang an enema bag on the ceiling fan, then as things go wrong, you fumble in the dark for the light switch, and unknowingly flip the wrong one.
ReplyDelete5 guitars, packed house, no strings.
ReplyDeleteBefore I moved to L.A., my dreams used to be filled with "celebrity cameos" - James Garner, Gene Hackman, Larry Hagman, Fred MacMurray (numerous times). Usually, they were pals of mine, though the MacMurray dreams typically involved my trying to get his autograph when he was old and drooly.
ReplyDeleteSurprisingly few female stars turned up, though once I got it on with Yasmine Bleeth. But get this - my own dream transitioned directly from the foreplay to the afterglow. I think there was even a quick pan to a fireplace. A PG-rated sex dream! I think that qualifies as a nightmare.
Now that I see celebs every week in real life, I never dream about them anymore.
"Except for my dreams about being back in high school, trying to make it to class on time. Except I don't have my books, I don't know where the classroom is. And I'm naked."
ReplyDeleteI have this one all the time. Though I am not always naked.
Back when I was in sales, we were expected to sell at least 10 packages/day. I left that job a dozen years ago, but still have nightmares that I can't close my tenth sale.
ReplyDeleteThen, there are the nightmares in which I just can't break a story, but I'm awake for those...
With eyes bulging Larry Bowa finds he can't speak! Wrestling with helmet and chalk boundry he is reduced to tears like an infant who can't get his way
ReplyDeleteI'm a drummer so: it's time to go on and I'm still trying to find my cymbals, or where's my pedal? Wait, it's in my car two miles away, everyone's onstage looking at me, looking at their watches...I'm fumbling around, sometimes there's a big name cat waiting on me as well..nobody's helping me..AAAgh!haha
ReplyDeleteMy nightmare is turning on KABC to hear Dodger Talk but instead, I hear Sean Hannity.
ReplyDeleteHey, Hannity's the Phil Rizzuto of conservative talk show hosts -- i.e., he can't stay on topic for more than two minutes at a time without going off on a tangent, and is incessantly plugging something he's doing that has virtually no relevance whatsoever to the day's broadcast.
ReplyDeleteThe difference was with the Scooter it was endearing after a while to see when he was going to suddenly switch over to discussing the top seafood restaurants in Bergen County or the merits of the upper vs. lower level of the George Washington Bridge as the best way home from the Stadium. Hannity's verbal wanderings always go into areas designed to get him some more outside publicity and $$$.
As for my recurring dream, it's a bizarre little number involving getting stuck on a Staten Island Ferry when the water runs out of New York Harbor and having to trudge through sludge to reach the shore (post-December 2004, I suppose there should also be some horrific tsunami part of this dream when the water rushes back in and tries to drown everyone, but it hasn't shown up yet. I guess my subconscious is falling behind on current events).
I'm trapped, the bad guys are closing in, and no matter how hard I pull the trigger my revolver's hammer won't fall.
ReplyDeleteor
I'm in a strange city. I call for a hooker. Paris Hilton shows up with an entourage.
I go to the computer to print out the final version of my latest book and send it into my editor the day before deadline. I open up the Books folder and there's no file for the just-completed manuscript. Nothing. I frantically go through all my other folders. Zilch. I scramble for the flash drive because I obsessively back up my documents. It's empty.
ReplyDeleteIt's like the book I labored over for months doesn't exist.
When I worked in a clothing store (in college) I dreamed about color coordinating everything - I'd be in another dream and suddenly realize that the colors on the house I was passing weren't in the right order and freak out...
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked as a chef I dreamed about the food spoiling a couple of times - but more often had creative dreams about recipe ideas.
When I was a proofreader, I would sometimes wake up certain that I'd forgotten to check some vital piece of info in the disclaimer on a coupon, or used the wrong pricing chart - mistakes that could cost the company millions.
And now, as a massage therapist, I don't recall having had any work-related dreams. I was just thinking about that a couple of nights ago and wondering why. Guess there's just no anxiety attached. (I love this job.)
Presidential candidates surviving sniper fire.
ReplyDeleteseriously, wouldn't we all be better off having to choose "real people" instead of pre-packaged "centrists" who follow the most votes instead of their principles? Okay, bad example. I guess you have to have something before you can follow it...
Since I work sporadically, I'm willing to take on other people's work nightmares for them. I could use the experience. Please, just make sure you're wearing enough to cover your privates.
ReplyDeleteI was a bartender for 15 years before I grew up, got my degree, went to grad school, etc. But my anxiety dream is still the same: tending bar at a massively long bar (once, it was carside service at a double-boulevard intersection), where I'm never able to start making one person's drink before I have to run down the opposite end and help some other screaming person. This dream STILL makes me wake up in a sweat.
ReplyDeleteAs an actor, I have had, of course, the typical actor's nightmare - onstage, no idea what my lines are.
ReplyDeleteBut I have another that comes back from time to time. I realize I own a really cool old car, but I have no idea where I left it. Sometimes it's two cars, but usually one.
I have also had the one tim w. mentioned, and I also had that actually happen. Sophomore year, History of Western Civ., final exam, I'd only done the first 3 weeks reading. Failed the test, failed the course. This is why I've done so poorly in western civilization, I suspect.