Dialog from a dream

Between 6 and 7am this morning, I had a strange dream about a man who dated a series of women, all of whom ended up shooting him at the end of the relationship. This was a strange dream, not just because of the subject matter, but because I felt like I was watching a TV show from the inside. Rather than being a participant in the dream, I was like a disembodied person drifting through it. Scattered throughout the dream were interesting pieces of dialog. The man was describing to a women his history with guns and girls, and told her about the first time he was shot. He was shot through the jaw and the bullet lodged in his head.

His head was wrapped in bandages, but he was alert. As he was pulled onto the ambulance he said to the doctor, in a near panic, “Did you get a picture? Did you get a picture?”

The doctor smiled calmly at him and said, “Yes, but you won’t be around tomorrow to see it.”

I thought this was an insensitive thing to say, but nonetheless true. And yet, the injured man seemed to be hanging in there. His pupils were responding properly to light, and he could answer questions about where he was, what happened to him, and who was president.

I have no idea where this dream came from. Usually, my dreams are triggered by events during the day, but I can think of nothing like this permeating my subconscious. I’d been watching no television. I barely had time to do any reading yesterday, and what reading I did manage was a few more pages from Thoreau’s Walden. But that eerie line uttered by the doctor, “Yes, but you won’t be around tomorrow to see it,” echoed through my head the entire rainy drive into work this morning.

So I thought I’d share it with you.