I Dreamed I Dream

Quiet Village - Fragments of Fear Vol. 1 [2005]

1 Unknown Artist - Intro
2 Goblin - Zombie
3 SSQ - Trash's Theme
4 Aphrodite's Child - Capture Of The Beast
5 Charles Manson - It's Coming Down Fast
6 John Carpenter - Reel 9
7 Poppy Family, The - There's No Blood In Bone
Vocals [Featuring] - Susan Jacks
8 Roger Webb Orchestra - Hammer House Of Horror
9 Pino Donaggio - Dead End
10 Fred Myrow - Mineshaft Chase
11 Ralph Lundstein - Horrorscope
12 Donald Rubenstein - Train Attack
13 Hot Blood - Soul Dracula

I am locked in all night tonight, as I have horrifying creeping deadlines to meet. I will share this with you: I had a strange dream last night. You should know that it is very unusual that I would want to share such a thing with you. I consider the recounting of dream narratives to be one of the human race’s more pointless conversational efforts, because unless you yourself experienced the dream, its recounting will most likely seem little more than a heap of non sequiturs, compelling only to their narrator.

A friend and I sneak into an exclusive, very sophisticated party on the 102^nd floor of an immense skyscraper. The windows are floor-to-ceiling, everyone is very chic and important. My friend and I wander through the crowd, grabbing free drinks, ogling the partygoers, exploring. Out of nowhere, a series of calamitous events unfolds. A man in a suit is split in half cut through the torso and his body is somehow propelled violently through the glass. Panic ensues and it is clear that the building itself is about to collapse – there is a deafening riot to escape. I lose my friend but somehow manage to survive by jumping out of the building and landing in a pile of cardboard boxes. As I pass out from exhaustion I realize that around me are the bodies of the superheroes "The Fantastic Four," who have not survived the leap from the building and who lay half-covered in its dust. 

When I awake it is clear I have entered another realm that exists on top of our own. I am met by two small, amusing creatures. One is a blue and white duck who resembles Groucho Marx, with bushy eyebrows and a cigar, and whose name is Twindle. They escort me to meet the other inhabitants of this invisible parallel world - it is a frightening phantasmorgia of all manner of horrible beasts. I take out my camera and record them, as you yourself might do in my situation. Among them there are wobbly, demonic trolls who sing in unholy choir. There is a deranged, bloody yeti, with the hindquarters of a gigantic snake. They all begin to attack and devour one another in mindless, eternal frenzy. I get it all on tape. Finally I am escorted to a door which I understand only I can open and close, but if it is left open, the beasts are free to wander back into my world. I pass through the door knowing I have footage of the beasts as evidence of my strange journey.

I awoke in the middle of the night immediately after this dream ceased, and was still so in the feverish grip of its contents that I did not want to go back to sleep, but nor did I want to get up and write the dream down right away, as the act of writing of what I had dreamt seemed still too incantatory. My mind turned to the camera - the story seemed to be about the creative process, about venturing into the soul's own underworld and returning with images that could be shared with others, instead of the beasts themselves, who would only lay waste to the world, leaving it in ruins like the tower from which I had leapt.